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COPYRIGHT RKPOSm 








■ BIRDLING • NIKKO • MINKA 











<* # 

0 































“Why, what’s this?” said a thundering voice in his ear 










THE CRUISE of THE 
LITTLE DIPPER 

and OTHER FAIRY TALES 

THE WONDERFUL TALE of NIKKO 
PETER DWARF 
THE CRYSTAL BOWL 
THE MERCILESS TSAR 

by 

SUSANNE LANGER 

It 

Illustrated by 

H* SEWELL 



NORCROSS 


NEW YORK 



JAN 2 4’24 

©C1A765774 

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THE CRUISE OF THE 
LITTLE DIPPER 


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COPVfMOMT 1923 

»v MOficao// n.v 




THE CRUISE OF THE 
LITTLE DIPPER 



Once upon a time there was a very poor 
boy, who had no cap on his head, no shoes on 
his feet, and never a penny in his pocket. He 
was so poor that he did not even have a name. 
His father had gone to sea many years ago in 
a ship called The Big Dipper, and as he had 
never returned, people said surely he must be 
dead. So the boy had gone to live in a small, 
dark house beside the sea, with his great-aunt, 
who was very old and cross and strict. She 
did not let him have any sugar on his cereal 
or butter on his bread, and every day after 
school she spanked him soundly for all the mis¬ 
takes he had made that day, and if he had not 


5 



made any she spanked him just the same for 
all those he would probably make to-morrow, 
or the next day, or the next. When he asked 
for a bit of soap to blow bright soap-bubbles, 
she cried: 

“Soap-bubbles, indeed! Soap is made only 
to wash one’s face with. You may have all 
you want for that, but for bubbles, no, no! 
Bless my boots, what will you ask for next?” 

When the other children played on the 
beach, building castles in the sand, or picking 
up pretty shells, this poor boy had to gather 
driftwood for his great-aunt’s kitchen fire. 


6 



But for all his hard luck he was always 
whistling blithely at his work. He would whistle 
all the tunes in the hymn book, and all the 
sailor’s songs, and the nursery songs, and then 
some more that he made up as he ran along the 
beach picking up driftwood. Of course his 
great-aunt had forbidden his whistling about 
the house, but other people liked to hear him, 
and since he had no name, they called him 
“Birdling.” His great-aunt called him “You!” 

One day, after he had come home from 
school, washed his hands, eaten his dry bread 
and drunk his tea without sugar or cream, he 
went as usual to the beach to gather wood; but 
this day, all the boys from school were down 
by the sea-side making sail-boats. Their moth¬ 
ers and aunts and grandmas had given them 
odd bits of muslin from the rag-bag for sails, 
and their fathers and uncles and grandpas had 


7 


given them little pots of paint, and the old boat- 
builder who lived on the beach had supplied 
the nails and boards and no end of good advice. 
They were building a splendid fleet, and when 
Birdling came whistling along the sands, they 
all hailed him and shouted: 

“Birdling, Birdling, come and build a boat! 
We have nails to spare, and surely you have 
some nice boards in your load of driftwood! 
Come, come and build a boat!” 

So Birdling, forgetting all about his duties 
and his great-aunt, sat down in the warm yellow 
sand, and built a boat of driftwood; and while 
he worked he whistled. 

The boys were all so glad to hear him and 
be able to play with him that they gave him 
all the paint and nails that they could spare, as 
well as string for his rigging and a lead sinker 
for his anchor. Of course he had many kinds 


8 


of paint, and not enough of any one color to 
paint his whole boat, so her hull was black, the 
trimming golden-yellow, the deck bright-blue 
and the mast was green. She was a funny 
boat indeed, but Birdling liked her none the less 
and wanted to name her after his father’s ship, 
the Big Dipper. 

‘‘But she isn’t big!” said the other boys. 

‘She’s the smallest boat of all!” 

So he called her the Little Dipper. 

“What will you do for a sail?” the others 
asked. “We’d love to give you some muslin, 
but we haven’t a bit to spare.” 

Here was a dilemma indeed. Then Birdling 
remembered that he had a patch on the seat of 
his trousers that he did not need at all, for his 
great-aunt always patched them before they 



went into holes (“If I didn’t,” she would say, 
“why bless my boots, he’d sit them through in 
two minutes!”); and now he did a dreadful thing, 
he took off the patch and used it for a sail! 

They had such a good time with the boats, 
loading them with cargoes of sea-shells and dig¬ 
ging harbors and chasing away the crabs who 
came to watch, that they did not notice how the 
sun had dipped down behind the sand-dunes 
and the light-house brightened far out at sea. 
Suddenly they heard the curfew ring. 

“Why, it’s past supper-time!” they cried, 
and all the boys snatched up their boats and ran 
home. In a moment the beach was as deserted 
as the sea, and Birdling sat alone on the sands, 










his boat between his knees, while the shadows 
of night crept down to the water. At the 
furthest end of the beach gleamed a dull square 
of light—that was his great-aunt’s window, 
brightened by the oil-lamp behind it: 

Oh, how she was going to scold him now! 
For this time he had really been naughty. He 
had gathered no driftwood, he was late to sup¬ 
per, and he had ripped the patch off the seat 
of his trousers! 

“I don’t dare take you home, Little Dipper,’ 
he said as he placed his boat in the safest harbor, 
as far as possible from the incoming tide. “My 
great-aunt would burn you in the kitchen stove. 
Goodby, Little Dipper!” 

His great-aunt met him at the door as he 






came home. She was so angry that her cap 
had slid over one ear, her eyes were like tiny 
hot coals and her very apron-strings curled with 
wrath. She boxed Birdling’s ears, smack, 
smack, smack!—until they were as pink as sea- 
shells. 

“You, you, you,” she cried, “You shall 
have no supper, sir, but a very good whipping! 
Go up on the hill behind the house and cut a 
switch, a strong one, a long one, for a long 
strong whipping, sir!” 

Obediently Birdling went up to the hill 
where the witch-hazel bushes held out their 
long, strong boughs to be cut for switches. But 
somehow he could not find just the switch he 
wanted; one was not long enough and another 
was too long, or one would not be strong enough 
and the next too strong. He looked them all 
over very carefully. 


12 



The witch-hazel bushes were in blossom, 
there were fuzzy little yellow stars on their 
boughs; Birdling saw a bumble-bee (who should 
have been in bed an hour ago) darting from 
bush to bush and tasting the little flowers. Then 
the boy remembered that he was to have no 
supper to-night, and as he felt dreadfully hungry, 
he touched one of the yellow blossoms and 
licked his finger that was covered with fine 
golden pollen, just to see what it tasted like. 

Behold what happened to Birdling! He 




did not know that the witch-hazel flowers were 
full of Fairy Bread! Suddenly he grew smaller 
and smaller, like a candle on a birthday-cake, 
till he thought he must go out altogether—but 
just before it was time to go out he stopped 
shrinking and saw to his great relief that he was 
still a good inch taller than the bumble-bee. 

He sat down with surprise, hands on the 
ground and feet apart, and the short grasses 
closed above his head. All around him the 
daisies, who always enjoy a joke, were tittering 
and looking at him through the grass. Some¬ 
where behind a huge fuzzy mullen-plant was a 
great noise, like the motor of an aeroplane—it 

was the bumble-bee, coming to see what was 
going on. 

“What’s happened?” he boomed in his 
rolling bass voice. 

“That’s what I’d like to know,” replied the 


14 



boy, picking himself up. “I never felt so small 
in my life, not even when I tore my Sunday 
shirt and my great-aunt scolded me before every¬ 
body! Why, I’m no bigger than a sea-horse!” 

The daisies were still laughing and now 
they could no longer contain themselves. 

“He ate fairy-bread,” they giggled, “and he 
grew as little as a balloon when the air goes out, 
ho, ho, ho, ho! Tee, tee, tee, tee!” 

“Ate fairy-bread!” exclaimed Birdling, “do 
you mean to say I am a fairy now?” 

The Bumble-bee put his head on one side 
and deliberated. 

“No,” he said slowly, “You’re 'not a fairy. 
You’re only fairyish. What’s your name?” 

“I haven’t any. But people call me Birdling.” 

“Well, that’s not so bad. What can you 
do?” 

“Nothing. Oh, yes—I can whistle!” 


15 


“Where will you live? You are too small 
to live with your great-aunt. She would surely 
step on you.” 

Birdling looked around; there was a ground- 
sparrow’s nest under the witch-hazel bushes, 
very near the fairy-bread flowers. 

“Here,” he said, “If nobody minds, I’ll live 
here.” 

So that is where he lived all summer. Every¬ 
body on the hill grew fond of him, and in the 
mornings when the robin sang to the sun, Bird- 
ling too would be up and whistling. 

But one day the Bumble-bee came to call. 
His face was serious and his voice unusually 
rumbly. It was a cool day so Birdling was all 
wrapped in a mullen leaf. 




“Its Autumn!” said Bumble. “What will 
you do when Winter comes?” 

“I don’t know. What do the birds do?” 
“They go to the Fairy Islands.” 

“Mayn’t I go?” 

“You aren’t a bird or a fairy,” objected the 
visitor. 

“But I’m fairyish, you know.” 

“Then you may, I suppose.” 

Birdling got up, ready to start at once. 

“How do the birds get there, Bumble?” 
“They fly.” 

“But I can’t fly!” 

“Then you can’t go.” 

“But you said I could if I was fairyish!” 

“No, I said you might. You may, but you 
can’t. See?” 

Birdling shook his head. 

“Where are the Fairy Islands?” he asked. 


17 



“Beyond the Deep Sea.” 

“Could one go in a boat?” 

“Possibly.” 

Then Birdling remembered the Little Dipper, 
lying forlorn on the sands, beyond the reaches 
of the tide. Perhaps some boy had picked her 
up, or perhaps the waves had taken her—or 
perhaps she was still in her harbor! 

Neatly he folded some mullen-leaves, for 
sailors need warm clothes and blankets, and 
with these over his arm he b egan the long 
journey from the hill-top to the harbor. It was 
ten fairy-miles of rather rough walking. The 
Bumble-bee went with him and when they had 
come as far as his great-aunt’s house, which was 
just half-way between the hill and the beach, 
he flew up on her roof where you could get a 
splendid view of the country. 

“Oh, can you see the Little Dipper?” cried 


18 



Birdling from below. 

“I see a boat on the sand,” reported Bumble, 
“a very queer boat—her hull is black, her trim¬ 
mings golden-yellow, her decks bright-blue and 
the mast and sails are green.” 

“That’s the Little Dipper!” shouted Birdling, 
and began to run as fast as he could. He quite 
forgot that his great-aunt sat by the window, 
knitting wristlets and watching everything out¬ 
side the house. She saw the tiny creature run¬ 
ning along the beach, and as she was very old 
and could not see very clearly through her spec¬ 
tacles, she opened the window and leaned far 
out. 

“It must be a mouse,” she decided, and 
hobbling across the room, she called her cat and 
opened the door for him. 

“Mousie outside, Puss!” she said. “Go 
catch the Mousie, catch the Mousie!” 



19 



The big black cat never had much to eat 
so he was very glad to go and catch a mouse. 
Poor Birdling dropped his mullen-leaves and 
ran faster and faster, but could not run fast 
enough. The Cat came nearer and nearer. 



“Oh, I can’t run any more!” panted Birdling 
at last. In another moment the Cat would have 
pounced upon him and devoured him—but just 
then the Bumble-bee came booming through 
the air, and stung the Cat on his big, black, 
S-shaped tail. The cat gave a terrible cry, turned 
around and ran home three times as fast as he 
had come. 

Birdling had to sit down and rest for a 
while after the Cat had gone. Then he and 


20 


the Bumble-bee went on, hoping to reach the 
Little^ Dipper before noon. But they had not 
gone one-half a fairy-mile further, when a cross, 
scratchy voice shouted at them: “Get off the 
beach!” 

“I can’t,” said Birdling timidly. “There’s a 
board fence on one side and water on the other, 
and I can’t go back the way I came, because 
there’s a cat.” 

He could not even see who was speaking. 
There was only a big brown hill in front of him. 

“I’m not on the beach,” replied Bumble-bee. 
“I’m in the air. Who are you, anyway?” 

“Who am I! Well, I like that—who am I? 
Why, I’m ME!” 

The big brown hill lifted itself up a bit, and 
they saw that it was the back of a Horse-Shoe 
Crab. 

“Get off the beach, you civilians, this is a 


21 



parade-ground! I’m drilling the new regiment 
from the Deep Sea.” 

Then they noticed a long line of little pink 
Crabs emerging from the foamy water and 
slowly ascending the sands. 

“Backward—march!” shouted the Horse- 
Shoe Crab. 

There was nothing for Birdling to do but sit 
down on an empty oyster shell and wait until 

the parade was over. They marched backward, 
and marked time with two feet, three feet, four 
feet, till they had learned to keep all six of them 
going, and they did squads right and left and 
exercised their jaws and joints and pincers. 
There was nothing they did not do. 

At last the Horse-Shoe Crab shouted: “Dis¬ 
miss!” and all the little Crabs tumbled back into 
the sea, pinching each other and betting who 


22 



o 


9 


o 



would be first down the beach. Then the old 
commander turned his attention to Birdling and 
Bumble. 


“Who are you?” 

“Nobody.” 

“Where are you going?” 

“I’m not going at all,” replied Bumble. 

“You want to cross the parade-ground?” 

“Yes.” 

“What for?” 

“To get to my ship.” 

“Show your passport.” 

“Here!” and Bumble unsheathed his shiny 
long bayonet. 

“That will do,” said the Horse-Shoe Crab 
quickly, backing away a few steps and pulling 
in his tail. “You may pass.” 

It was night before they reached the Little 


23 


Dipper. She looked very forlorn, lying a bit 
sideways, sails furled and decks covered with 
sand. Worst of all, a whole brotherhood of 
Shrimps had set up housekeeping in her hold, 
and not even at the point of Bumble’s bayonet 
would they move out. They wore little coats 
of mail that made them quite indifferent to a 
mere bumble-bee’s sting. 

“But you must move out,” pleaded Birdling, 
standing on the deck and shouting down into 
the hold. “I want to go to the Fairy Islands, 
and I simply must have my ship.” 

“Going to the Fairy Islands?” echoed the 
Shrimps. “That’s a long trip, without food or 
water aboard and without a crew!” 

“Oh, well lay in food and water soon 
enough,” said Bumble, who sat in the rigging. 
“As for a crew—” 

“Let us be the crew,” cried the Shrimps. 


24 


“We’re not clever, but we’re really very obedient 
and faithful. We don’t want to spoil your trip, 
Birdling, but we don’t want to move, either; 
there are very few houses along the beach, and 
none as nice as this. Let us be your crew!” 

“But then I’ll have to pay you,” said Birdling, 
“and I have no money. Shall I pay you with 
music? I’ll whistle one tune for every Shrimp 
once a week.” 



“It’s a bargain,” replied the crew. 

All night long Bumble flew to and fro be- 


25 


tween the witch-hazel bushes on the hill and 
the boat upon the beach, carrying fairy-bread 
and honey-dew for the voyage. The crew 
packed all these provisions into big barnacles 
that made splendid kegs and barrels. Birdling 
was brave enough to go back along the beach 
by moonlight and pick up the mullen-leaf 
blankets he had dropped when he fled from the 
Cat, and at the crack of dawn the Little Dipper 
was ready to put to sea. They cleared the har¬ 
bor and with the outgoing tide floated out upon 
the ocean. Bumble flew above the mast and 
accompanied them for several miles; two fiddler 
crabs came to the edge of the beach and fiddled 
until the good ship was out of sight, and Bird- 
ling stood at the bow with the great green sail 
blowing behind him. At last everybody shouted: 
“Goodby, goodby, goodluck, thank you, thank- 
you!,” then the Little Dipper sailed out of sight. 


26 


For three days they journeyed, always point¬ 
ing their course to Eastward, but they did not 
know just where to look for the Fairy Islands. 
Sometimes a flock of birds would fly above 
them also going Eastward, but they flew so fast 
that it was never possible to follow and learn 
their path. 

On the fourth day, just as the pink dawn 
spread over the sky, Birdling saw a whole fleet 
of tiny sails. They were no bigger than his own, 
but they were pearly white and shimmered with 
lovely colors, so he knew they must be Nautilus 
ships. 

“Heigh-ho!” he shouted, catching up to 
them. “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho!” 

The Nautilus ships have deep, deep holds 
with many little cabins in them. When he 
shouted, a whole troop of fairy sailors came 


27 


popping out to see who had called to them. 

“Heigh-ho!” they replied. 

“Where are you going?” asked Birdling. 

“To the Fairy Islands.” 

“Take me along?” 

“With pleasure,” said the fairies. “Who 
are you? ’ 

“I’m Birdling, and the Shrimps are my crew.” 

The Little Dipper was surrounded by the 
ships of pearl, and as the sea was quiet and the 
wind very low they could talk from deck to 
deck. The oldest one of the fairy captains was a 
Brownie named Trick. He was seven hundred 
years old, and knew about everything from the 
North Pole to the great Antarctic. 

“We are going to the Fairy Islands with a 




cargo of ants’-eggs,” he told Birdling, “Our 
King likes to eat them poached, or fried, or 
scrambled, on his breakfast toast. We would 
do anything to cheer up the King.” 

“Why does the King need cheering up?” 
Birdling inquired sympathetically. “I thought 
Kings were always happy.” 

“Oh no, no, no, our Fairy King is very un¬ 
happy. His little son has been kidnapped by 
Shag.” 

“Who is Shag?” 

Trick shook his head and rolled his eyes at 
Birdling’s ignorance. 

“What! You have sailed the Sea for fully 
half a week, and don’t know who Shag is? Ask 
your crew!” 

But the Shrimps did not know about Shag, 
either. They were not very clever, you know, 
and had not gone to school. 


29 


4 ‘Won’t you please tell us?” said Birdling, a 
bit ruffled at the Brownie’s airs. 

“Shag is the King of the Deep Sea!” shouted 
all the Fairies together, so loudly that the Nautilus 
ships rocked with the noise. 

“He has kidnapped our little Fairy Prince,” 

Trick explained, “and nobody knows whether 
he is ill, or imprisoned, or dead. Our King is 
so sad that he will not wear his crown, he has 
locked it in a closet and hidden the key. As for 
the queen, the poor lady has turned into a weep¬ 
ing willow!” 

“That’s awful,” said Birdling, and the Shrimps 



were moved to tears. “Where does Shag live?” 

“Under the rock where the Sea Lion sleeps.” 

“Can’t somebody sneak into his house and 
take a peep to see what has become of the 
little Prince?” 

“You make us shiver to think of it,” replied 
the fairies, pulling their caps down over their 
ears and their sailor collars up. “The Sea-Lion 
wakes at the slightest noise and catches anyone 
who comes near. And if you did get by, 
Shag would be sure to see you and eat you at 
a gulp!” 

But Birdling went on asking questions. 

“Where is the Rock?” 

“We are just passing it,” said a Shrimp from 
the top of the mast. “I see it, far to leeward.” 

Birdling turned his rudder, and waved his 
hand as his boat swung away from the Nautilus 
fleet. 


“Goodby,” he shouted. “Tell your King 
that Birdling has gone to take a peep into Shag’s 
palace, to see whether the young Prince be ill, 
or imprisoned, or dead! You shall not see me 
again till I bring word of your prince.” 

The fairies set up a great cry of amazement, 
but already the Little Dipper was far to leeward, 
steering toward the terrible Rock. So they con¬ 
tinued on their way to the Fairy Islands and all 
the way home they could talk of nothing but 
the adventurous captain of the many-colored 
sail-boat, and his crew. 

Birdling sailed straight up to the Rock. It 
was black and high, and the waves ran up on 
it in great white ruffles. Then he noticed that 

the top of the Rock was not of stone at all—it 
was the outstretched form of the Sea Lion, sound 
asleep. 

When the Shrimps saw the monster, their 


32 



courage failed them. They fell upon their knees 
and begged the Skipper to turn back, for they 
were dreadfully afraid of being eaten; and when 
Birdling would not turn back, they mutinied and 
said they would not mind the sails and would 
not go one inch nearer the terrible Rock! Then 
Birdling grew angry at their cowardice and 
locked them all into the hold, where their cries 
could not be heard, for he was afraid they would 
wake the Sea Lion. He then took the ropes 
and the rudder in his own hand, and steered 
his craft into a cove so near the Sea Lion that 
he could hear the great creature breathing. 

In the cove and under the rock ran a deep 
cave, that he guessed at once to be the entrance 
to Shag’s palace, where you could go down into 
the sea without drowning, as the Mermen and 
Mermaids do. Very quietly he fastened his 
boat to the rock, then climbed on to the gun- 


33 


wale and dived like a dolphin into the deep, 
dark, ripply water. 

Yes, this was the entrance to the Palace of 
King Shag! At the bottom of the cave was a 
winding stairway, like the inside of a huge shell. 
Strange, fantastic fish swam up and down and 
churned up the water so that it was very hard 
for Birdling to keep his balance. But fortu¬ 
nately they did not see him, so he crept on 
slowly down the steps. 

Suddenly he saw a gleam of light, and he 
felt sure it must be from Shag’s palace. Faster 
and faster he ran down the wet, mossy stairs, 
till a current of water caught him and took him 
all the way down just as a fly goes down the 
hole in a washbowl. When he landed at the 
foot of the stairs, he was sitting on golden sands 
©and the bright lights blinded his eyes. 

“Why, what’s this?” said a thundering voice 


in his ear, and a huge fin picked him up. He 
looked up and saw Shag himself, a huge silvery 
fish with long whiskers and pop-eyes and a 
golden crown on his head. He was very hid¬ 
eous, and Birdling was terribly frightened, but 
he looked all around hoping to see the Prince. 

“I don’t know who you are,” said Shag, 
“but you look as if you’d make a nice little 
morsel.” 


“I will let you have one chance for your life. 
Before I eat you, you shall come and see the 
wonderful treasures I have collected, and if you 
are able to pick out the most precious jewel in 
my vault, I will let you go. You shall have the 
jewel for a prize, and I will give you one day’s 
grace before pursuing you with my soldiers.” 

So Birdling was led down some more long 
stairs to the cellar of the palace, where shining 
jellyfish lights hung from the ceiling. In their 




o 


dim radiance he saw a heap of treasure such as 
no one had ever seen in all the world—dia¬ 
monds that shone like stars, rubies and sap¬ 
phires and emeralds, brooches and necklaces, 
pearl-set combs, wonderful pins and lockets 
and vessels of hammered gold! 

Then Birdling noticed a queer locket lying 
close to his foot; it seemed to be made of two 
big oyster-shells closed with a band of tin. 
There was nothing very precious about it. 

“But it must be precious, or it wouldn’t be 
here,” he thought quickly. 

So, while Shag waved his whiskers in a 
bored and superior way, and his soldiers craned 
their necks to see Birdling, the boy suddenly 
stooped and picked up the locket. 

“I choose this,” he said, and held it up with 
both hands. 

Shag uttered a howl of rage. 


36 



“He has guessed, he has guessed!” The 
body-guard drew back in terror as their King 
beat the water with his fins, till a cloud of mud 
came up from the floor of the cave and his 
crown slipped over one eye. Now he would 
really have liked to eat up Birdling but of course 
the soldiers had all heard the rules of the game, 
so he had to abide by his word. Birdling was 
escorted back to the hall and allowed to go up 
the winding stairs, back to the Little Dipper, 
the heavy oyster shell under his arm. It seemed 
to him about as big as a suit-case, but harder 
to carry because it had no handle. No one 
knows how he could ever have carried it to the 
top of the stairs, had he not met a Sea-Horse 
who gave him a ride. 

“Heigh-ho!” he cried, when he stood once 


O 

O o 


37 



more aboard the Little Dipper, “are you asleep 
or awake down there in the hold?” 

“Awake!” cried one voice. 

“Asleep!” murmured all the others. 

“Then wake up, for we must flee! We have 
one day of grace and then Shag will pursue us: 
Heave the anchors and hoist the sails!” 

So he raised the trap-door of the hold, and 
the Shrimps climbed out, looking very shame¬ 
faced and small, as well they might; and in a 
few minutes the Little Dipper was under sail. 

When the Rock was well out of sight and 
the Little Dipper making good speed, Birdling 
gave the wheel to the first mate, and decided 
to open the oyster-locket. It took three Shrimps 
and the captain himself to move the heavy 
band of tin that held the two half-shells together. 
But at last they fell apart—and what do you 
suppose was inside? 


38 


A perfect little bedroom, all wrought of 
finest gold, with a canopy-bed of rosy silk and 
a tiny chair and table and even a dresser—and 
in the bed, on pillows of down, lay the young 
Fairy Prince! When the locket opened and the 
light shone into his room, he rubbed his eyes 
and said: “What time is it?” 

“Timetogo home,” replied Birdling. “Don’t 
be afraid, for we are taking you there.” 

They gave him some witch-hazel bread and 
a drink of honey-dew, and one of the Shrimps 
was appointed to tell him stories to pass the 
time. The young Prince was cheerful and well- 
behaved and every one who saw him loved 
him at once. He had yellow curls and bright, 

laughing eyes, and clothes made of flower- 
petals, that made Birdling feel very plain in his 
rough coat of mullen-leaves. 



Everybody aboard the Little Dipper was 
perfectly happy, so they quite forgot that to¬ 
morrow morning Shag would pursue them with 
his soldiers. Imagine their terror when they 
woke up at sunrise in a raging storm that made 
th e waves dash over the very mast of their 
boat! They could hear Shag howling at the 
bottom of the Deep Sea, and as he whisked his 
tail he made more and more bubbles and white- 
caps come up. The white-caps pursued the 
Little Dipper like ranks of horsemen. 

The young prince, hidden under Birdling’s 




mullen-coat, began to tremble and cry, for he 
was dreadfully afraid of Shag. 

“Don’t be afraid,” said Birdling. “I’m sure 
we will reach the Fairy Islands very soon now, 
and then we will besafe.” 

“But where are the Fairy Islands? Where 
are they?” queried the young prince, scanning 
the sea with his bright eyes. “I don’t see them, 
and I am so frightened!” 

Birdling had just been hit on the head by a 
hailstone, but he pretended it did not hurt. 

“You mustn’t be frightened,” he said cheer¬ 
fully. “I’ll whistle you a tune if you’ll stop 
crying.” And he began to whistle as though 
he did not mind the storm at all. 

As he whistled, the sea became calm and 
began to shimmer with a thousand lovely colors 
—and out of the rippling waters rose three snow- 






capped mountains surrounded on every side by 
sunny green plains. He had found the Fairy 
Islands! 

Birdling ran his boat into the harbor where 
he saw the Nautilus fleet lying at anchor, and 
he called out joyfully, “Yo, ho, yo, ho, heigh- 
ho! Where is Trick?” 

A crowd of fairies came running to the har¬ 
bor’s edge, and cried, “Hush, hush! No one is 
allowed to shout or whistle or sing on this 
island. Even the birds do not sing. The King 
and Queen have commanded silence to prevail, 
until they have some news of their son.” 

“Here’s news for you, then,” replied Bird- 
ling. “Go and tell your King and Queen that 
the young prince has returned!” So saying, he 
picked up the fairy child and stood him on the 
gunwale of the ship for everyone to see, and 
the well-behaved child doffed his little diadem, 


42 



and bowed. 

So great was the joy of the fairy people, that 
they stumbled over each other in their haste to 
go and tell the King that the good ship Little 
Dipper had brought back his son. The queen, 
who had turned into a weeping willow, came 
back to life and wept now with delight; the 
king hunted all over the palace for the key to 
his closet, for he could hardly wait to put on 
his crown once more and hold a great banquet 
in honor of Birdling, who had restored the heir 
to the throne. The birds burst into song and 


43 




the blue bells chimed and even the butterflies, 
who are usually silent, began to trill and chirp, 
until the whole island rang with joyous sounds. 
As soon as the cook could get the banquet 
ready they all sat down and feasted, from the 
fairy King, with Birdling by his side, to the 
meekest under-earthworm, and the shy Shrimps 
had a table by themselves because they did 
not possess very fairyish manners. There was 
cake for everybody, and ice-cream, and choc¬ 
olate with whipped cream, and candy and 
favors. The best thing about the party was 
that all the goodies were fairy-food which 
couldn’t make you sick however much you ate, 
and they all drank Birdling’s health in pink 
lemonade. 

Three days later, when the feasting was 
over, and the hundreds of golden dishes had 
been washed and dried, Birdling was playing 


44 


on the beach with the fairies and he saw a ship 
out at Sea. 

“Look,” he said to his friend Trick, “there 
is a ship just like mine, only a hundred times 
bigger! That isn’t a fairy ship. How do you 
suppose she came into these waters?” 

“Oh, that is a ship which came here long 
ago,” said Trick. “Shag caught it and tied it 
it to the light-house rock. It has been there 
for years and years. I suppose the storm which 
Shag made when he was angry at you, must 
have torn the rope and set the poor vessel free. 
Do you suppose the people on board are still 
alive?” 

“I’ll go and see,” said Birdling. “Of course 
I’m very small, but I might be able to help 
them.” So he took the Little Dipper and sailed 
out to the schooner. 

“Heigh-ho!” he cried, standing up and put- 


45 


ting his hands to his mouth. “Heigh-ho!” 

Somebody certainly was alive on the ship; 
a tall captain dressed in oil skins, stood up in 
the bow and shouted back: 

“We are the Big Dipper! Who are you?” 

“The Little Dipper! And you must be my 
father,” cried Birdling, dancing for joy. 

At first the Captain could not believe his 
eyes and ears, but when Birdling stood on his 
right hand (he had the good ship Little Dipper 
in the left one) he looked at him very closely, 
and saw that it really was his son. 



“Oh Father, now we can go home together,” 
exclaimed the boy, hugging his father’s thumb. 
“But will you wait till I go and say goodby to 
my fairy friends?” 

“Yes, I will wait,” said the Captain, “for 
you should never leave your friends without 
saying goodby and thank you.” 

The fairies were sorry to see Birdling go, 
they let him take along all the treasures he 
wanted from the King’s store room, and helped 
him carry them down to the harbor and put 
them in his hold. He took a bag of gold for 
his father and a little one for himself, besides 
the oyster-locket with the golden chamber 
inside, which he had won from Shag, and a 
little pearly crown for his friend the Bumble¬ 
bee at home. He even took a gold thimble 
for his great-aunt and a little silver bell for the 
Cat, to show that he bore no malice. 


47 


“And here is some fairy wine you must 
drink when you are safely aboard your father’s 
ship,” said the King, handing Birdling a tiny 
vial just as he said goodby. “It will make you 
grow up again and be as big as other boys. 
We will miss you, Birdling. Farewell!” 

So Birdling, a life sized boy once more, 
went home with his father whistling happy 
songs. As his whistle died away in the dis¬ 
tance, the Fairy Islands sank down into the 
water, the waves closed over them, and you 
could not even guess where the three snowy 
peaks and the green plains and sunny harbors 
had been. 

And no one has ever seen them since. 



THE WONDERFUL 
TALE OF NIKKO 





THE WONDERFUL TALE OF NIKKO 


The Emperor of China was about to choose 
a bride. From far and near the fairest ladies of 
the realm came to his palace. They sat on 
pearly thrones which were borne on the shoul¬ 
ders of Hindu slaves or drawn by spotted 
leopards and some were floated down the great 
rivers on rafts woven of long-stemmed Lotos 
flowers. 

Nikko stood sadly by the roadside watching 
the grand procession pass. She was more 
beautiful than any of the splendid ladies, but she 
was poor and humble and had to work in the 
rice-fields where the muddy water tickled her 
little bare toes. 

“I cannot work in the rice-fields to-day,” 


51 




she said to herself, “for the procession is so in¬ 
teresting that I have to stand by the roadside and 
watch. I had better go into the woods, where I 
can’t see it, and pick some mushrooms for 
dinner.” 

So she took her basket and went into the 
woods. But before she had picked the first 
handful, she saw a tremendous scarlet toadstool 
spangled all over with silver dots, swaying on a 
tall silvery stem. It was the most enormous 
toadstool she had ever seen, so big that Nikko 
could have hidden under its flapping top. She 
wanted to pull it up and carry it as a parasol, 
but just then she looked over the edge and 
noticed that a pearly Snail and a golden Spider 



were sitting on top having tea together. The 
Snail turned around and stuck out his eyes at 
her like opera-glasses. 

“Excuse me,” said Nikko. “I almost picked 
your toadstool for a parasol! I didn’t see you.” 

“Why should a little girl want a parasol?” 
asked the Snail as solemnly as a great-aunt. 
“You’ re very vain.” 

“Oh no indeed,” replied Nikko. “But I 
should like to pretend I was a grand lady, going 
to the Emperor’s palace to-day. I should love 
to see the Emperor.” 

“So should I,” said the Spider. 

“Well, so should I,” admitted the Snail. 
“Why don’t you go?” 

“Ah, but look at me!” cried Nikko sadly. 
“I have on a hempen frock and my feet are 
bare and I have not a single jewel, only this 
string of red berries round my neck! But to ride 


53 


in the procession one must sit on a pearly throne 
and wear a silken gown and jewelry and carry 
a pretty parasol. I have none of these things.” 

“I will make you a dress more beautiful 
than silk,” said the Spider, “if you will take me 
along to see the Emperor!” 

“And I could take the toadstool for a par¬ 
asol, if you wouldn’t mind having tea somewhere 
else,” Nikko said. “But alas! what should I do 
for a pearly throne?” 

“Well, now you mention it,” chimed in the 
Snail, “if I could eat enough tea and toast I 
might grow big enough to carry you, and my 
house would make a pretty good throne. Yes, 
perhaps I’ll carry you, if you will get me the tea 
and toast; for I must confess I should love to see 
the Emperor!” 

As fast as her bare feet could carry her, 
Nikko ran home, took all the tea out of the can- 


54 



ister, baked six batches of bread, put them in a 
bucket and carried them back to the forest. 
She then laid a fire of sticks and began to make 



toast so ambitiously that the scent of it could be 
smelled all over China from the Great Wall at 
one end to the Yellow Sea at the other. And 
above the fire hung the bucket, filled with water 
for the Snail’s tea. 

The Snail filled his acorn-cup a million times 


55 









that day and ate toast till the sun went down. 
Then he rested for a few minutes, but when 
night came he began again and you could hear 
him munching in the dark. 

In the morning he was so big that he had to 
descend from the toadstool for fear of breaking 
its stem. By evening he was as big as a foot¬ 
ball, and by the next morning as big as the 
biggest snow-ball you ever made, and before 
the third day, he was big enough to carry Nikko 
on his back. 

Meanwhile the Spider had been very busy. 
He had spun a wonderful silken gown, all decked 
with dew-drops and inwrought with the wings 
of butterflies, and when he had watched Nikko 


56 





put it on and made sure that it fitted perfectly, 
he fastened himself in front for a brooch. Nikko 
was delighted. But suddenly she exclaimed: 

“Alas, I h ave no shoes! The grand ladies 
all wear tiny beaded shoes. What shall I do 
with my feet?” 

“Oh, never mind your feet,” replied the Snail. 
“You’ll be riding all the time so you can keep 
them tucked under your gown.” 

So they picked the scarlet toadstool for a 
parasol, set Nikko a-top the Snail with her feet 
well hidden, and started on their way. 

The procession was almost over; only a few 
stragglers hurried along the highroad, and they 
all overtook poor Nikko, for a Snail can go just 
half a mile an hour and no faster. A haughty 
four-in-hand of peacocks passed her at a strut, 
tails spread and crests erect; a team of pig-tailed 
Chinamen running for all they were worth and 


57 


jolting their mistress till she was dizzy, almost 
stumbled headlong over the Snail; four turbaned 
slaves overtook her and then looked back open- 
mouthed at the beautiful lady; and a spotted 
leopard, loping in front of a gorgeous princess’ 
throne, shied in terror when the Snail happened 
to stick out his eyes, and the leopard, the throne 
and the gorgeous princess were wrecked in the 
muddy water of the rice-field beside the road. 

When they came to the palace they heard 
the bells ringing, the big gongs sounding and the 
conches blowing, and saw great kites and paper 
lanterns and balloons swinging in the air, for the 
Emperor had just chosen a bride and the pro¬ 
cession was all over! The bride was the beau¬ 
tiful lady Lu Tsing, who now sat beside him on 
the terrace and smiled down on all the other 
ladies. Her maidens and attendants sat at her 
feet and told her how fortunate she was. 


58 


“How did you feel when you rode in the 
procession?” asked one of the maidens. 

“Weren’t you dreadfully excited till you 
knew whom his Majesty would choose.?” 

Lu Tsing yawned behind her fan. 

“No,” she replied, “I wasn’t a bit excited, 
for I knew of course that he would choose me.” 

Just then the big Snail came plodding along 
the road, and they all got a glimpse of Nikko’s 
face under the scarlet parasol. She was so lovely 




to behold that everybody gasped. But the Em¬ 
peror did more than gasp; he jumped up from 
his ivory chair and cried, 

“Friends, Courtiers, Chinamen! I have 
changed my mind! I am not going to marry 
Lu Tsing after all, but this unknown damsel 
whose name has never been heard in the land!” 

Then the bells were tolled and the gongs 
sounded and the conches blown louder than 
ever, as a hundred slaves hurried down the steps 
to pick up Nikko’s throne and carry her up to 
the terrace. Then the Snail withdrew into his 
house, for he was ticklish, and the Spider whis¬ 
pered to Nikko under cover of all the noise: 

“You must not be found with a real spidei 
on your breast! I will leave you now, and you 
can say you have lost your pin.” 

With these words he dropped to the ground 
and ran when he thought no one would notice. 


60 


But one person did notice; that was the lady 
Lu Tsing. She tried to kill him with her foot, 
but he escaped again and again, till suddenly 
she picked up a cup from the tea-table, turned 
it up-side down and trapped him under it. 

The Emperor greeted Nikko with honeyed 
words, but the lady Lu Tsing having caught the 
Spider, retreated to the furthest, darkest chamber 
of the palace, where she tore up all the curtains 
and bed-spreads and bureau-scarfs in her wrath 
till the room looked like a rag-man’s house. 
Then she sat down among the wreckage and 
plotted revenge. 



Nikko would have been quite happy if she 
had not been so worried about her bare feet. 
Sooner or later they would be discovered and 
oh, what would the Emperor think of her then? 
Just now he took her hand and said to her: 

“My dear, you must tell me what you would 
like for a wedding gift!” And Nikko almost 
cried out: “Shoes, your Majesty, shoes!” but 
she did not want to give herself away, so she 
replied, 

“Well, I do not know which I would rather 
have, a bright brocaded shawl or a new pair of 
slippers!” 

“You shall have both,” declared the Em¬ 
peror, and ordered a maiden to fetch them. 
Nikko donned the shawl and slipped on the 
little shoes but they were so small that they hurt 
her feet dreadfully.. 

“Ah well,” she said to herself, biting back 


62 


tears of pain. 4 ‘I shall have to get used to some 
discomforts now that I am to be an Empress!” 

She had been Empress for about a week, 
when her husband the Emperor fell very in. it 
really was indigestion after the wedding-feast, 
but of course the doctors wanted to make it 
something more dignified, so they said: 

“He must have been bitten by a poisonous 
insect!” 

“Yes, and I know who it was,” said Lu Tsing 
to her attendants. “It was the golden Spider 
who sat on Nikko’s breast when she came! 
Everybody thought it was a pin, but it really 
was a Spider, for I saw him creep away!” and 
the attendants went about the palace telling 


everybody how Nikko had worn a live Spider 
for a pin. 

Nikko was very anxious about her husband. 
He lay on a couch in the parlor because he was 
too ill to sit on his throne, and twenty doctors 
stood around and told him that a poisonous 
insect must have bitten him. Just then Lu Tsing 
came in, with a tea-cup in her hand. 

“Behold what the maid found in his Majesty’s 
bed when she turned the mattress!” she cried, 
And showed them the golden Spider, who sat 
in the tea-cup and looked at them with great 
surprise. 

“Why, it is the Spider that Nikko wore when 
she came,” said the Emperor. “We all thought 
it was a pin. And she said she had lost it. 
Nikko, you were fibbing!” 

“Yes, I was fibbing,” Nikko admitted. 


64 



“Friends, Courtiers, Chinamen! I have changed my mind” 













“And then she put the Spider into your 
Majesty’s bed!” cried all the people. “She is 
a wicked woman!” 

In vain Nikko protested. Lu Tsing’s attend¬ 
ants had told the story so often that everybody 
was ready to believe it now that they saw the 
Spider. 

“The Spider shall be killed, and Nikko be 
put into the highest, strongest, darkest tower, 
with a moat around it, and kept there all her 
life,” said the Emperor in great anger, “and Lu 
Tsing shall be Empress of China!” 

So they set the Spider down on the floor 
and called a hundred slaves to come with 
brooms and kill him. But the hundred slaves all 
hit each other’s brooms and got so mixed up 
that they did not hit the Spider at all, so he hid 
under the Emperor’s couch and when nobody 
was looking he ran away. He ran to the back- 


65 


yard where the extra thrones and the Emperor’s 
beasts were kept. 

Here the Snail was just having an argument 
with a quick-tempered Dragon about which 
was better, tea or toast. The Dragon said tea. 
The Snail said toast. 



“Stop arguing,” said the Spider. “The best 
food is rice anyway.” And while the Dragon 
was still switching his tail and shouting: “Tea, 
tea, tea!” the Snail stopped and listened to the 
story of Nikko’s trouble. 

“This is awful,” he said, looking forward 


66 




with one eye and back with the other to make 
sure nobody was listening. “Have they put 
Nikko in the tower?” 

“Yes, they have,” wept the Spider. 

“Can’t she let herself out of the window? 
You could creep in and spin a rope for her. 
She’s not very heavy.” 

“But there is a deep moat around the tower,” 
said the Spider. “I couldn’t get to her, and 
besides if she let herself down she would drop 
into the moat.” 

“I’ll help you below,” replied the Snail. “You 
be ready to do your part. Meet me to-night at 
the edge of the moat!” 

Just then one of the slaves appeared with a 
broom, so the little spider ducked out of sight 
under a throne. The Snail sat in deep thought 
for a while; then he went and found the Dragon 
again, and told him that toast was better than tea. 

67 


At night, when the temple-bells had stopped 
ringing and everyone in the palace was fast 
asleep, the Snail and the Spider met at the edge 
of the moat. 

“Hop on my back,” whispered the Snail, 
and slid into the water with the Spider aboard. 
Softly he floated across the black moat to the 
tower where Nikko was imprisoned. 

Poor Nikko sat weeping by the window. 
It was cold and dusty and untidy in the tower- 
room. She had pulled the brocaded shawl 
tight about her shoulders and had taken off her 
tiny shoes, for now that she was no longer an 
Empress she thought she might as well be 





comfortable. Her parasol lay up-side-down in 
a corner for she never expected to use it again. 
The sun never shone in the tower where she 
was to stay all her life. 

How surprised she was when a small voice 
called: “Nikko, Empress of China!” and looking 
up, she discovered the golden spider sitting on 
the window-sill!” 

“We must hurry,” he said, and began to 
spin a rope. He was all out of breath from 
running up the high steep wall of the tower. 
When he had finished the rope, Nikko put on 
her shoes and picked up the parasol, the Spider 
hopped on her shoulder, and together they let 
themselves carefully out of the window. The 
rope was very slippery and they slid down a 
little faster than they intended. 

Splash! they landed on the back of the 
Snail and ducked him completely under water, 


69 


but he bobbed right up again. They floated 
across the moat in the moonlight and the spider 
climbed on top of the parasol and kept the 
watch, for the Snail kept getting his eyes full of 
water, and Nikko was so busy holding on that 
she could not look around at all. 

“Take care,” said the Spider, “someone is 
coming! Thank goodness, here we are ashore. 
But I’m afraid somebody has seen us!” 

The Snail crawled out of the water and 
shook himself, stretched his eyes and paused for 
breath. 

“Run away, Nikko,” he said. “I should 
like to carry you, but my pace is too slow. You 
had better trust to your feet. Hurry, hurry and 
flee from the land of China, or the Emperor’s 
soldiers will catch you!” 

“But I won’t leave you,” protested Nikko. 

“Yes, you must leave me. I will follow by 

70 


and by and meet you in the big world beyond 
China, for no one will think about me or try to 
catch me. Take the Spider with you. Buddha 
preserve you!” 

So Nikko and the Spider kissed him good¬ 
bye and ran away together, over muddy fields 
of rice and big dry fields of black poppies, 
past temples and villages till they came to the 
furthest end of the country. It was lucky they 
had not waited for the Snail, for no sooner were 
they out of sight of the palace than they heard 
the Emperor’s soldiers coming after them. 
Somebody really had seen them in the moat; 
it was the Dragon, who had drunk so much 
tea the day before that he could not sleep that 



night and was prowling through the yard look¬ 
ing for the Snail. He wanted to have another 
argument to pass the time. But when he dis¬ 
covered the Snail in the moat, carrying Nikko 
away from the tower, he did not stop to argue 
—he ran straight to the Emepror’s room, and 
told him what he had seen. 

Nikko ran as fast as she could, ducking 
under the tea-plants whenever she had to stop 
and rest. She lost one shoe in the deep mud, 
so she took off the other one too and carried it 
in her hand, glad to be barefoot again. The 
tea-plants tore her gown, but every time there 
was a fresh rent the Spider promptly mended it. 

Thus they came to the great Wall of China, 
and there they had to stop. The gates were 
locked and the wall was much, much too high 
to climb over. 

“Ha, we have you now!” shouted the 


72 




soldiers, catching up and swinging their swords 
most grandly. 

But just then there came a mighty puff of 
wind that pulled hard at Nikko’s parasol. She 
held on with all her might, and the wind picked 
her up and wafted her high, high into the air, 
and carried her clean over the wall! The soldiers 
dropped their swords in amazement, and stood 
with mouths agape, but there was nothing they 
could do for the gate was locked and Nikko 
escaped under their very noses. They could 
only pick up their swords and go home again, 




with their pig-tails dangling foolishly behind. 

In a great forest outside the land of China, 
the parasol came to earth. Nikko planted it in 
the ground to let it grow as a toadstool once 
more. When it rained she sat underneath it, 
and by and by the Spider made curtains all 
around, so that she had a lovely little house to 
live in. 

About three months later, when they had 
given up all hope of ever seeing the Snail again 
and the Spider had hung a black crepe on the 
door in his memory, they heard a rustle among 
the tea-plants, and saw his pearly shell plodding 
through the forest! 

“Well”, said the Snail, sitting down heavily, 
“I’m sure I never want to go travelling again! 
The roads are really dreadful in China, and the 
baggage problem is terrible!” It had taken him 
two months to make the trip, and he had to 


74 


wait another month for the great gate to be 
opened, for it is only opened once a year, and 
anyone who wants to come in or go out has to 
wait for that day. 

But they were so happy to be reunited again 
that they soon forgot all their troubles. The 
Snail lived in his house and Nikko in hers, and 
the Spider had Nikko’s old shoe for a bunga¬ 
low. Every afternoon Nikko received her 
friends on the little lawn between the three 
houses, where she spread the bright brocaded 
shawl and served them tea in the most imperial 
fashion. When it was time to go they would 
make a bow and say: 

“Goodnight, Empress, Buddha preserve your 
Majesty!” 

“But I am not an Empress any more!” said 
Nikko sadly. “Lu Tsing is Empress of China.” 

“Oh well,” replied the Snail, “Lu Tsing may 


75 


be Empress of China, but I’m sure you are 
Empress of everywhere else!” 

“Where is that?” asked the Spider. 

“Lazybones,” said the Snail with his great- 
auntliest air, “look it up on the map!” 

So they continued to bow, and the Spider 
(who didn’t look it up) embroidered a little 
sampler with these words on it and fastened it 
over Nikko’s door: 

“Here under curtains magnificent dwells 

Nikko, the Empress of Everywhere Else!” 






PETER DWARF 





PETER DWARF 


Once upon a time there was a man who 
lived in a dark hut under a willow tree. His face, 
and his wife’s face, and the faces of their six 
black-haired children, were as dark and gnarled 
as the willow trunk. But when their seventh 
son was born, he was a light-haired boy, with 
clear blue eyes, and a smile like golden sunshine. 

“This is not our child!” cried the black-eyed 
man and the black-eyed woman; “this yellow¬ 
haired baby is a changeling; the dwarfs have 
put him into the cradle!” So they called him 
Peter Dwarf. They were very unkind to 
and when he grew older they made hi 



79 


hard, ugly work, like picking nettles and killing 
lambs. Peter liked to work, but he did not at 
all like to kill poor little lambs. 

One day it happened that the cat got into 
the larder and ate a big piece of meat. The 
black-eyed woman took her by the tail and 
flung her out of the window at Peter Dwarf, 



telling him that he must get rid of her at once. 
But when he had the lovely white cat in his 
arms, she looked at him so pleadingly that tears 


80 




came into his eyes, and he said: “Minka, I can¬ 
not hurt you! But if I don’t obey, my father 
and mother will be very angry.” But the cat 
still looked at him so sorrowfully that he said: 
“Minka, let us both run away. You shall not 
be harmed.” 

They walked over many fields where corn 
and beans grew in rows and the rabbits jumped 
away as they came. When night fell they had 
reached a mountain, and there were no more 
fields, only roots and rocks and shadowy trees. 

“Let us go into a cave to sleep,” Peter Dwarf 
suggested. So they crept into a deep cavern, 
which seemed to have no end. Peter spread 
his coat and lay down; but Minka crept into all 
the dark crannies mewing and scratching, and 
finally she disappeared. When Peter heard 
her come back again, he could only see her 
eyes, shining like stars in the rocky passage. 


81 


“Oho!” he cried, and the cavern echoed, 
“does this vault go on into the mountain? I 
must see how far it goes.” So he took up his 
coat and followed Minka. Presently they were 
in the heart of the hill. The caves were cold 
and damp, and it was very dark. Then Peter, 
shuddering, turned around to go back, but he 
was entirely lost among the winding passages, 
and the white cat walked aimlessly from one 
cavern to another. At last, after much wan¬ 
dering, they saw a light, and at the same time 
they heard voices—little buzzing voices, that 
sounded like a copper dish when you strike it 
and set it ringing. 

“They are coming this way!” whispered 
Peter Dwarf. “Look, they have lanterns they 
will save us. But who are they?—Minka, they 
are the Diggerfolk—the Dwarfs ! ” 

Presently they came, and their lanterns made 


82 





shadowy circles on the walls. They were little 
men, in gay, patched clothes, and their faces 
were brown and wrinkled like walnuts. They 
stopped, raised their arms, and pointed at Peter, 
crying all together: 

“Here is a mortal! Here is a child of mor¬ 
tals, in our own native caverns!” 

Now Peter had gone many hours without 
anything to eat, and the darkness and hunger 
had made him shaky. His knees gave way 
under him and he sank down on the stone. 

“Oh Diggerfolk, Diggerfolk, have mercy on 


83 



us! We are lost, and hungry, and have not a 
friend in the world ! ” 

The little men all muttered and grunted; they 
did not look unkind. 

"Who are you?” asked one of them who 
carried a great stone hammer. 

"I am Peter Dwarf,” replied the boy, bow¬ 
ing his fair, bright head. "And this”—he drew 
the white cat into his arms—"this is Minka.” 

"Peter Dwarf!” exclaimed the one with the 

hammer, "why do they call you Dwarf? You 

are as tall and well-shaped a boy as ever I have 
»* 




“Because I have blue eyes and yellow hair,” 
Peter replied, “I was so different from my 
brothers, and so ugly that my mother said I was 
not her own son, but a fairy changeling whom 
the dwarfs have put into the cradle.” 

“Ho, ho!” cried a big dwarf with a bunch 
of keys at his belt, “so they have sent you back 
where you came from, have they? And do we 
look as though we were your relatives? No, 
no, little boy; take up that purring friend of 
yours and go home to your mother and tell her 
that this is no place either for her child or her 
pussy-cat.” 

Peter was still kneeling on the ground, and 
Minka sat between his knees. Now he stretched 
his arms toward the little men, and implored: 

“Oh good kind Diggerfolk, let me go with 
you and work for you! My mother has not 

85 


sent me; I rein away, because I would not hurt 
Minka, and they would have been very angry 
with me. I will work for you from morning 
until night, only let me stay!” 

“Work?” said the dwarf with the hammer, 
“how can such a slight and princely creature 
work? Peter, let me see your hands.” He felt 

Peter’s hands; they were thin and strong and 
callous. “Yes,” he said, “this boy knows what 
it is to work, I think we had better let him stay 
with us. And now, Peter, since you are com¬ 
ing with us, let us have a general introduction. 



My name is Stroke,” “and he bowed as best he 
could over his round stomach. “I am a Sword- 
smith, and he with the pick-axe is a Miner, 
Mushroom by name; he of the pointed ears is 
Berry, the Blacksmith; and those three who are 
talking to the Lady Minka, are Hump, the 
Goldsmith, Crow the Coppersmith, and Wisely, 
he that jingles the keys—a Locksmith.” 

Peter got up and bowed to the little men. 
They told him to follow, then they led the way 
through winding passages down to the very 





“Now, if you will truly learn the trades,” 
they said,“you must work with each one of us for 
a year. You shall be given plenty to eat, and 
shall sleep beside the fire.” 

So Peter worked for the first year with 
Mushroom, the Miner. They would go into 
the shafts together and break the good ore out 
of the crags, letting the pieces roll with a noise 
like thunder down into the cave where Thorn, 
the Smelter, kept his furnace glowing. 

The next year Peter worked for Thorn, the 
Smelter, and his face became a ruddy brown 
from standing over the roaring furnaces; then 
he learned from Berry, the Blacksmith, how to 
make hammers and axes and other tools; and the 
next year he helped Stroke to fashion swords 
and armor. He made gold chains and brooches 
and rings with Hump, and keys with Wisely, 
the Locksmith. Before the seventh year was 


88 


over, there was not a lock in all Christendom 
which Peter could not open. 

“Keys,’ said Wisely, stroking his silken 
beard, “Keys are the most magic things in all 
the world. You have learned your trades well, 
Peter Dwarf; now we will let you go forth into 
the world and try your luck. And because you 
have been faithful and sweet-natured, you shall 
have a gift of magic. This gift shall be that 
whenever you stand in another person’s shoes, 
you will be able to see what that person sees 
and know what that person knows. Now use 
your magic as you will, and do not forget us. 
Good-bye, Peter Dwarf, good-bye ! ” 

All the little dwarfs waved their caps and 
their big brown hands, as Peter and Minka 
went back to the sunny upper Earth, which 
they had not seen for seven years. 

They wandered for a long time, when finally 


89 


they came to the hut where Peter had been born, 
but strange people lived in it now—his wicked 
black-eyed family had all died; the woman of 
a cat-bite, the man of a dog-bite, and the six 
naughty boys of over-eating. So Peter and his 
white Pussy walked on for many miles and 
came to a splendid palace where a king lived 
with his queen. 

“O Minka!” said Peter, quite breathlessly, 
“if one could only look inside for one single 
moment! Wouldn’t you love to look inside?” 

“Mew-ew,” said the cat, rubbing her head 
against his bare ankles. “Mew!” 

Just then a fat gentleman, in blue and gold 
attire, came running down the hillside, as fast 
as he could run. He stopped to catch his 
breath, and then started again. He was the 
king’s chamberlain. Peter bowed and spoke 
to him. “Sir, is there anything I can do for 


90 


you? If it is an errand, I am a swift runner!” 

“Indeed you should be swifter than I,” 
groaned the chamberlain. “Oh what a stitch I 
have; what a stitch! Yes, run if you will, and 
summon all the doctors in the land, and all the 
wise philosophers; for the King is very ill.” 

So Peter ran, as fast as only a bare-foot boy 
can run; and soon he came to a house that bore 



91 







He drummed on the door until the old magician 
came out, pipe in hand, to ask what had hap¬ 
pened, 

“The King is very ill!” cried Peter. “Go 
swiftly to the palace, good doctor, and find out 
what ails him.” 

All afternoon Peter ran on and on, hunting 
up physicians and wise men and sending them 
to the palace. At night he returned to the 
palace and the blue-and-gold gentleman called 
him into the banquet hall. Peter’s heart beat 
high as he entered the shining room which was 
lit by a thousand candles. Timidly he stood in 
the doorway, his red pointed cap in his hands 
and the white cat at his heels. 

He almost lost his breath when the Queen 
stepped through the great portal of gold. She 
was arrayed in crimson silk, with red roses in her 
black hair, and tiny silver slippers on her feet. 


92 



“Who is the little ragamuffin hiding behind 
the Lord Chamberlain?” demanded the Queen, 
spying Peter Dwarf. “Send him here, I would 
speak with him!” 

Peter approached, frightened and dazed, 
and dropped upon one knee. 

“Your Majesty,” he replied to her question¬ 
ing, “I am Peter Dwarf; the kind Lord Cham¬ 
berlain has permitted me to enter the hall.” 

“I like this boy,” said the Queen to the stout 
Lord Chamberlain. “Put him into proper clothes 
and send him back to me; he shall be my page.” 


93 






So they took Peter through many snow- 
white rooms to a little room in the back of the 
palace. In it were a bed and chairs made of 
rosewood, and roses painted on the walls, and 
silver stars on the ceiling; so that when you lay 
in bed you felt as though you were in a bower, 
looking up at the starry sky. 

“Here is your room,” said the servant who 
had brought him in. “And these are the clothes 
you are to wear.” 

Peter took off his leather apron and his red 
cap, and put on a doublet and hose of light blue 
silk, and a mantle of dark blue velvet. But 
happy as he was in his rich attire, he did not 
forget about the king who was so ill. Every 
time he met somebody who might know, he 
asked: 

“ Is his Majesty any better?” 

“No,” was always the answer, “He is very ill.” 


94 


At last the kind Lord Chamberlain told 
Peter what the doctors had said. 

“Some wicked enemy of the King,” he re¬ 
ported, “is burning a waxen image of his 
majesty over a slow fire; and as long as the 
image lasts the King will live, but when it has 
all melted he will die.” 

“Who can it be?” cried Peter. “Does no 
one know?” 

“Nobody knows except the wicked person 
himself. We think—but say not that I told you 
—we think it is someone in this very palace, for 

the good King has no enemies among his 
neighbors.” 

Suddenly Peter remembered the magic 
power that the dwarfs had given him. 

“Let me try on everybody’s shoes,” he cried, 
“and when I come to the shoes of the wicked 
person I shall know where the waxen image is 

95 




The Lord Chamberlain gave him permission 
to creep into every bedroom and dressing room 
in the palace. Minka always went ahead, and 
when anyone was in the room she waved her 
tail to warn Peter away, but when the chamber 
was empty, she said, “Mew,” and then Peter 
went in and tried on all the shoes he could find. 
But all the knowledge that came to him was a 
lot of little foolish secrets—where the Lady 
Natalia kept her jewels, and the Lord Richard 
had ridden over a chicken and had not paid 
the poor farmer a penny for it, and that the little 
chambermaid Clarissa was in love with a beg¬ 
gar-man. But he could not find out where the 
waxen image was melting. 

Meanwhile he hardly saw the Queen at all. 
She was always with the King, bathing his fore- 


96 



head, smoothing his pillow, and getting his 
chicken broth. 

“See,” said the chamberlain and the doctors, 
“how much she loves him!” 

One day the King was tired of having so 
many people about him, and sent everybody 
away but the Queen and Peter who had come 
in to fill the lamps. The Queen was stroking 
the poor King’s forehead. She had forgotten 
that Peter was in the room. As soon as he 
was asleep she doubled up her lovely white 
hand and shook her fist at him, whispering: 
“Melt—melt—melt! Another night and you 
are done! ” 

Peter thought his heart would stand still. 
Had he really heard aright? He crept out of 
the room as quietly as he had come, and 
hastened to the Queen’s dressing room. Never 
had it occurred to him to try on her shoes! He 


97 


attempted to open the door; it was locked. So 
he turned sadly to his own room, and sat down 
to think it over. 

Presently a valet came in with a message. 

"You are to wait on the Queen at dinner to¬ 
night,” it read. Peter obeyed, and thought 
little more about it. But when the Queen was 
seated he stood behind her chair and he noticed 
that she slipped her silver shoe off under the 
table. Deftly he stepped out of his own, and 
while she was helping herself to pink ice cream, 
he tried to push his foot into her little shoe. 
But alas! the shoe was so small that he could 
not even get his toes into it! He tried and 
tried, but in vain; he had to give it up. 

That night he walked disconsolately with 
Minka in the garden. They were just under 
the Queen’s window when suddenly, the case¬ 
ment was opened, and something which looked 


98 



like a fiery rocket or a shooting star flew out 
into the air—over their heads. 

“A witch!” cried Peter, and then, “The 
Queen!” For at that very moment a silver 
slipper fell beside him in the grass. When he 
had stepped into it at dinner, trying to stand in 
it for just one moment, he had stretched it so 
much that now it was too big for the Queen. 

As it fell Minka made a leap for it and tap¬ 
ped it with her paws—but no sooner was her 
little white foot inside the slipper then she began 
to wave her tail violently. She too had the 
magic gift of the Dwarfs! 

99 




» » i 




“I believe you kn ow,” cried Peter, as he 
followed her down the garden walks. “I be¬ 
lieve you know where the waxen image is 
melting!” Peter took the slipper from Minka 
and she ran ahead swiftly and quietly, and led 
him over the fields and fences to a high, dark 
mountain. At the foot of the mountain stood 
a tower of granite, with great iron doors. 

“Mew-ew,” said Minka, as she came up 
against the iron doors. “Mew ! ” 

Peter tried to force the door but it was 
strongly locked and would not move. Then he 
peered through the key-hole, and saw a reddish 
light, like the glow of a great fire. A voice 
that sounded like the Queen’s was chanting a 
dismal verse and Peter knew from what she 
said that the image would be melted by dawn. 

“Come,” said Peter to his cat, “I know what 
we must do; but it must be quick work! Oh 

100 



t t t 


Minka—one more dawn, and it will be too late!” 

He went into a cavern at the foot of the 
mountain. Here he called loudly down the 
dark passage way—“O Mushroom, Thorn, 
Stroke, Wisely! Help me — help me — help 
me! ” And in another minute he saw little 
lights approaching from all parts of the moun¬ 
tain, as the faithful Diggerfolk came to his call. 



Swiftly they set up a workshop, smelted the 
broken ore, hammered and polished and labored 
as only Dwarfs can. As the first streaks of 
light showed in the sky, they finished their 
work. Peter, who had taken off his silken 
clothes and put on a leather apron, now changed 
to the new suit of mail they had wrought and 
parted hastily from his friends with grateful 
thanks. Besides the armor, they had made him 
a sword, and most important of all a key to fit 
the iron doors. Soon he reached the tower 


101 



again and putting the key into the lock he used 
all his strength and finally the great doors 
swung open. 

Before him in the tower-chamber burned a 
mighty fire; the flames jumped up around some¬ 
thing that seemed like a human figure, stretched 
directly above them—but if you looked twice 
you saw it was a statue of wax, rapidly melting 
away. Over it the Queen was murmuring in¬ 
cantations while she watched the figure grow 
smaller and smaller at every lick of the cruel 
flames. 

Suddenly the white cat leaped at the Queen 
and began to scratch her. This gave Peter time 
to put out the fire and save the waxen image 
before it was quite melted. 

“I’m coming, Minka, I’m coming! ” he cried, 
as the Queen seized her by the throat and tried 
to choke her. Minka fought valiantly, until 


102 



A wonderful ladv stood before him in the shining dawn 

v O 













Peter rushed foward and cut off the Queen’s 
head with a single stroke of his sword. At 
that moment everything grew dark; a noise like 
thunder came from the depth of the mountain 
and Peter clasped his hands over his eyes, for 
he did not want to see any more. 

When he looked up again, the sun had risen. 
Light flooded the room, and a wonderful lady, 
clad in white samite as soft and pure as Minka’s 
fur, stood before him in the shining dawn. She 
held out her hands, and shaking back her golden 
hair said: 

“Peter Dwarf, my good sweet Peter, I am 
the Princess Minka; don’t you recognize me?” 
Then Peter looked into her starry eyes, and 
knew that his beloved Minka must have been 
enchanted by the wicked Queen many years 
ago, and that now the spell was broken. 

So they returned swiftly to the royal palace, 

103 


where they found everybody rejoicing because 
the King was so much better that that morning 
he had eaten four buckwheat cakes with syrup 
for his breakfast. And the King dubbed Peter 
a knight and made him general of his army and 
for a wedding present gave him a palace with a 
great rose-garden and a banquet hall. Soon 
after this Peter and Minka were married. When 
the good King died, many years later, they were 
made King and Queen, and ruled in peace and 
happiness all the rest of their days. 














THE CRYSTAL BOWL 






THE CRYSTAL BOWL 


Once upon a time in distant Orient Land, 
there lived a beautiful royal maiden, the Prin¬ 
cess Zarashne. Her hair was long and black 
as the veils of night, her arms were fair as the 
pink sea-shells, and her gowns were as glorious 
in color as the feathers of the peacock. Every¬ 
body in the palace where she lived, and in the 
town outside the palace-walls, loved Princess 
Zarashne; even the animals who dwelt far 
away in the desert had heard how good and 
beautiful she was, and many of them came to 
town hoping they might see her—the lion and 
the tiger, and the striped zebra, the ostrich and 
the camel and the curious giraffe. But the 
keeper of the palace-gate was afraid to let them 

107 





in, so the only ones who saw her were the 
ostrich and the giraffe, because they could look 
over the wall and watch her feed her gold-fish 
in the fountain. 

Most of all she was beloved by the Prince 
of all Orient Land, Selim Pasha the Proud (a 
Pasha is a very mighty kind of Prince, who 
wears a turban of heavenly blue and carries a 
curved sword in his golden belt). Selim Pasha 
rode through the gates of the Palace every 
morning at sunrise, on a snow-white horse, 
followed by a hundred soldiers on foot; on his 
shoulder he always carried a bird of paradise, 
who made sweet music for Princess Zarashne, 





t. 


and in his pocket he brought his pet white 
mouse to dance for her. All day long he 
walked with her in the garden and told her 
stories about the world outside the wall, where 
great rivers flowed, and palm-trees grew, and 
the yellow desert sand stretched from one end 
of Orient Land to the other. The only thing 
he did not tell her about was the terrible 
magician, who lived among the desert sands; 
he did not want to tell her anything that would 
give her bad dreams. 

The magician was a very mighty and ancient 













man, called Bulbo. By his strange, black magic 
he had built himself an impregnable castle and 
had tamed a great river, and made it surround 
his castle with a deep, impassable moat. No 
army could ever pass these waters, or scale his 
ramparts of yellow sand; if he himself wanted 
to go out, he rode on the back of a big brown 
bat. All the creatures of Night, the bats and 
owls and toads and many wicked faery sprites, 
dwelt with him in his castle and were his body¬ 
guard. 

Now it happened that Bulbo the Magician 
had left his castle and was riding through the 
air high over Orient Land, in the night-time, as 
was fhis wont. He was unusually far from 
home; in fact, the first light of dawn surprised 


110 


him just as his bat was fluttering over the royal 
gardens. The nightingale had stopped singing, 
and the birds of day had begun, the pansies 
and daisies and dreamy lotos-flowers were just 
waking up. Then he saw what seemed to him 
' the loveliest flower of all—it was Princess 
Zarashne sitting alone beside the gold-fish 
fountain, waiting for Selim Pasha. 

Bulbo spurred his bat, and swooped down 
among the rose-bushes like a swift, black 
shadow. Before Princess Zarashne knew what 
had happened, he had seized her and placed 
her before him in the saddle between the flut- 







tering wings of the bat, and they were rising 
up, up, up into the blue morning air! 

But just at this moment, the palace-gates 
swung open, and with a flourish of trumpets 
and a shout of greeting, Selim Pasha and his 
soldiers appeared. Great was their horror and 
dismay when they found the garden empty, 
and heard Princess Zarashne cry “Help, help!” 
far above their heads! Selim Pasha bared his 
sword and tried to reach the bat as it rose, but 
in vain—in the twinkling of an eye, the sorcerer 
had flown a thousand miles away. 

In Bulbo’s palace, Princess Zarashne found 
herself a prisoner. She was not cruelly treated, 
for Bulbo liked her and made her queen of his 
household. She had nothing to do but water 
the dark poppies and nightshade and beautiful 
poisonous berry-bushes that grew in his garden, 
and make necklaces of the pearls and shells 


112 




“Bore her away to his castle in the desert” 












that the river laid at her feet on the yellow 
sands. But she was very unhappy, for her only 
companion was a monkey who followed her 
about as her servant, carrying her tea-cup and 
her shawls and never saying a word; and she 
wept to think of the days when Selim Pasha 
had walked with her by the gold-fish fountain, 
while the white mouse danced and the bird of 
paradise sang to her—for she never hoped to 
see the Prince of all Orient Land again. 

Meanwhile, Selim Pasha the Proud was in¬ 
consolable without his beloved Princess. His 
soldiers could not help him against Bulbo’s 
power, and no prophet, no wise man, no general 
could tell him how to get Princess Zarashne 
back. So he put on a black cloak, and put 
black ashes on his turban, and would not be 
comforted. When his people saw him in the 
street, and shouted: “Hail, Selim Pasha the 


1 13 


Proud!” he would hide his face in his cloak 
and say: 

“Nay, do not call me the Proud—I am only 
Poor Selim Pasha!” 

Then the people were very sad, and even 
the animals outside the gates felt mournful. 
The crocodiles in the rivers wept bitter tears, 
and the lions and tigers howled in the desert, 
and when the giraffes and ostriches saw that 
the garden was empty, they lost their appetites. 

One day Selim Pasha met an old man who 
was selling bowls and vases of glass at the 
palace gate. Because the prince was wrapped 
in black and walked unattended, the old man 
did not recognize him, and thought he was just 
a humble citizen. 








“Good day to you,” said the old man. 

The prince stopped and bowed, for it pleased 
his sorrowful fancy to be taken for an ordinary 
man. 

“Would you not like to buy some of my 
beautiful vases and bowls?” the old man con¬ 
tinued. “I have brought them many hundreds 

\ • 

of miles across the desert. Look at them, and 
you will not feel so sad !” 

But the prince shook his head. 

“I do not want vases of glass,” he replied, 
“what I seek is magic knowledge! ” 

The old man sat down and set his vases and 
bowls in a dazzling row upon the pavement. 
They shone in all colors, like the feathers of a 
peacock, and reminded the prince of Zarashne’s 
silken gowns. 

“I am old and wise,” said the vendor. “I 
have more knowledge of magic than any man 


115 


on earth—more even than Bulbo, who lives in 
the yellow desert. But if you would have a little 
—ever so little—of it, you must pay the price I 
ask.” 

“Anything, anything you desire,” cried the 
prince, “though you ask all the treasures of 
Orient Land! ” 

“I will have none of your treasures. All I 
ask is your service. I need an apprentice in my 
workshop, many hundreds of miles away across 
the desert, and if you will come and blow glass 
for me for seven years, you shall have the 
secret knowledge for your reward.” 

The prince thought deeply for a moment. 
What would his people say if they ever found 
out that their ruler had become a glass-maker’s 
apprentice? But then, was not Princess Zara- 
shne’s return worth any sacrifice? 

“I will go with you and be your apprentice,” 


116 




cA 

r0' 

said Selim Pasha the Proud, Prince of Orient 
Land, “but wait until I get a bundle of clothes, 
and tell the head-cook not to expect me for 
dinner, and ask the Lord Chamberlain to feed 
my white mouse and my bird of Paradise until 
I come back!” 

That same day they mounted camels and 
set out on their long journey across the desert. 
They passed the castle of Bulbo, but the rivers 
that surrounded it were so wide and the ram¬ 
parts of yellow sand so high that Selim Pasha 
could not see over them, though he stood on 
tip-toe on his camel’s hump. Sadly he rode by 
and followed the old glass-maker to his city, 
many hundreds of miles away. 

When they reached the city, the old man led 
him to a dingy little house made of bricks and 



117 


mud. It was very dark inside, for there were 
no windows. 

“Stand very still, my lad, till I light the lamp, 
or you will break some precious glass!” said 
the old man. Then he struck a light, and Selim 
Pasha beheld a most wonderful sight. All 
about him were vases and bowls and cups of 
iridescent glass standing on shelves of crystal, 
and there were delicate flowers made of glass 
and glittering prisms that caught the lamplight 
and threw back a thousand brilliant hues. 

“Here you shall work for seven years,” said 
the old man, “and I will teach you how to make 
all these things, but you will have to sleep on a 
mat upon the floor, and eat from the bowl after 
I have eaten, because you are an apprentice.” 

“I will do as you say,” replied Selim Pasha 
the Proud. 

So the Prince of Orient Land made glass 


118 


for seven years, and slept on a mat upon the 
floor, and ate from the bowl after his master 
had eaten. When the seven years were over, 
his master said to him: 

“Selim Pasha, 1 have taught you all there is 
to know about glass-making; now make me a 
bowl of rainbow-colored glass, so large that a 
man can sit within it; so bright that no one can 
see through the glass because of its beautiful 
colors; and so light that the littlest breeze may 
carry it away. 

“And when I have made the bowl,” said 
the prince, “shall I then have my reward?” 

“When you have made the bowl, we will 
talk about your reward.” 

So Selim Pasha sat up three days and three 
nights with the glass-blower’s lamps between 
his knees, and the glass-blower’s rod in his 
mouth. Finally he made a bowl so large that he 

119 


himself could hide within it, so bright that no 
one could see through it because of its beau¬ 
tiful colors and so light that the littlest breeze 
could carry it away. Then he noticed that the 
edge of the glass was not smooth, so he dipped 
his finger in water and ran it around and around. 

Suddenly the bowl began to sing, as glasses 
do when you rub around the edge—and he 
could understand quite plainly, what it sang! 
The fairies that lived in the rainbow colors 
were singing together: 

“Over the yellow desert sands, 

Prince of all the Orient Lands, 

Come, we will bear thee now! 

O come away in thy crystal ship 
And watch the ancient river slip 
Under thy glassy prow!” 

Then he knew that in this glass was the 
magic that he had worked for seven years to 


120 



learn. Carefully he took the great bowl out of 
doors. It was very early in the morning, and 
his master was still asleep, so he wrote “good¬ 
bye” and “thank you” on the door, and making 
no sound, climbed into the bowl that was 
blazing with color in the sunlight. 



No sooner was he settled than a little breeze 
crept down the street, picked up the beautiful 
bubble, and wafted it high into the air! He 
floated over the roofs of the town, and he could 


121 









smell the breakfasts cooking, which made him 
very hungry. Then he passed over the green 
meadows that surrounded the town, and could 
see cows and oxen below him that looked no 
bigger than Noah’s-ark animals. At last he 
came to the desert and by sunset he had reached 
the river that had flowed around Bulbo’s castle. 
Then he felt the glass bubble sinking, down, 
down, down, until it rested like a ship on the 
river, and he saw the dim green waters gliding 
under him. 

Finally the great bowl drifted ashore, 
Princess Zarashne was near the river gathering 
pearls and shells, and when she saw the beau¬ 
tiful crystal sphere, she ran swiftly and called 
to Bulbo: 

“O Bulbo, Bulbo, come and see what the 
river has brought to you!” 

Bulbo came, and looked in amazement at 


122 


the huge bowl. Fortunately he was a little man 
and doubled up with age so that he could not 
see over the edge of the bowl, and of course he 
could not see through it, because of its beautiful 
colors. Only Princess Zarashne could look over 
the edge, and when she saw who was inside, 
she could not suppress a little scream, though 
Selim Pasha had made her a sign to be quiet. 

‘‘What is it?” asked Bulbo, when he heard 
her scream. 

“I saw a spider,” she replied quickly. 

Bulbo called six of his black sprites to take 
the bowl on their shoulders and carry it to his 
flower garden. When they had set it down 
among the roses and pansies and dreamy lotus- 
flowers, Bulbo went indoors for his supper, but 
Zarashne stayed outside and looked into the 
glimmering depths of the bowl. 

“O Zarashne, beautiful Zarashne,” whis- 


123 



pered Selim Pasha, “I have come to set you free!” 
And all the evening they whispered together, 
while the garden went to sleep and the moon 
rose and the nightingales began to sing. Then 
Bulbo came to the window with a candle, and 
called: 

“Zarashne! It is time for you to go to bed!” 

But Zarashne did not heed him, and at last 
he came out into the garden. 

“Why do you lean over that bowl and look 


124 










into it ail the time, Zarashne? I have called 
you seven times and you have not answered 
me!” he said in great anger. 

“I see the reflection of my face,” replied 
Princess Zarashne, and continued to gaze down 
and whisper to Selim Pasha. 

“If you do not come into the house,” cried 
Bulbo, “I will break the bowl!” 

Then Zarashne was frightened and would 
have followed him, but she could not tear her¬ 
self from her lover, who was saying: 

“Goodnight, goodnight, most beautiful flower 
of Allah’s garden! Goodnight, my princess!” 
So she lingered just another moment and then 
another, till Bulbo was too angry to call her any 
more. 

“You are a vain, vain woman,” he exclaimed, 
“to gaze so long at your own image, and I will 
put an end to it.” He tore a big branch from 


125 


the nearest pomegranate tree, and before she 
could prevent it, he struck the beautiful bowl 
with all his might. It flew into a thousand 
glittering fragments; but in the midst of it stood 
Selim Pasha the Proud, Prince of Orient Land, 
his sword bared and shining in the moonlight. 

“Treason,” screamed the little sorcerer, 
“treason!” and fell on his knees before the Prince. 



Then Bulbo’ s servants, his bats and sprites, came 
running to help him. But when Bulbo had 


126 


broken the crystal bowl, the rainbow fairies who 
had been imprisoned in the glass, were all set 
free, and they took splinters of the glass for 
swords, and fought a dreadful battle with Bulbo’s 
sprites, among the poppies and nightshade and 
the lovely poison berry-bushes. At last the 
rainbow fairies were victorious, and Selim Pasha 
sheathed his terrible sword. 

“I will not kill you, Bulbo, because you are 
small and old,” said the magnanimous prince. 
“But you shall be banished.” 

Then the prince gathered up the fragments of 
his bowl, which looked like common window 
glass now, for the rainbow fairies had taken all 
of the beautiful colors with them, and taking 
his glass-blower’s lamp, he blew the pieces into 
a perfect sphere all around old Bulbo. Then he 
drew a great breath—poof! and the globe rose 
into the air, higher and higher among the clouds, 


127 


till the winds wafted it thousands of miles away. 
People who saw it and the little man inside, 
thought it was the moon. Where it came down 
was never known, but old Bulbo had vanished 
forever from Orient Land. 

“But now we are in Bulbo’s palace,” said 
Princess Zarashne, “and your crystal ship is 
gone; how shall we get across the river?” 

“Have no fear,” replied the prince, “the 
fairies will help us.” Then he called them all 
together, and they went down to the yellow 
sands, where they spread their shining wings 
and made a rainbow bridge over which Selim 
Pasha the Proud led his princess back to Orient 
Land. 





His people were overjoyed to see him again, 
for they had long thought him dead. His sol¬ 
diers had forgotton how to march, for they had 
been idle so long, and when they tried to 
blow the trumpets, they found them all rusty 
and useless. The Lord Chamberlain was dis¬ 
covered hiding under the throne, for he had 
forgotten to feed the white mouse and the bird 
of Paradise, who would have starved if the 
head-cook had not taken pity on them every 
day. But Selim Pasha pretended not to notice 
anything that was wrong; he invited everybody 
to his marriage-feast, for the lovely Princess 
Zarashne became his queen, and they spread 
a banquet-table three miles long so even the 


129 


humblest beggar could partake. There was 
another table, too, for the animals who had not 
eaten with a real appetite for seven years, and 
were awfully hungry now. And at this great 
banquet Selim Pasha told the story of his ad¬ 
ventures. Some believed his tale and others 
did not, but they all rejoiced to have him back, 
and he and Queen Zarashne lived together in 
peace and happiness and ruled their people 
wisely for the rest of their lives. 






THE MERCILESS TSAR 























THE MERCILESS TSAR 


Far, far away, on a strange northern shore 
by the White Sea, there was once a rich and 
royal city. The streets were paved with silver, 
the walls were shining marble, and the church 
steeples were topped with gold so they 
gleamed at night in the starlight like big 
bright moons. The city belonged to a strong 
and splendid monarch whom people called 
The Merciless Tsar. He lived in a palace of 
black marble and ivory with terraces of tur¬ 
quoise mosaic, windows of pure crystal and 
heavy curtains of silver cloth brocaded with 
brilliant designs. The Tsar had no pity for 
the poor and humble; he wrapped himself in 
a mantle of pride, and made subject kings 


133 


and princes wait on him at table, and help 
him into his coat when he went out to 
drive in his golden chariot behind twelve 
black horses. If a poor beggar was bold and 
foolish enough to cry out to him: “Alms, alms, 
for the love of St. Peter, O most wealthy and 
wonderful!” he would order the driver to 
crack his whip over the beggar’s stooping 
shoulders and drive the unhappy wretch be¬ 
fore his chariot for miles and miles. When 
people cheered him as he passed, he pre¬ 
tended not to hear because he thought he was 
too great to listen to them. 

One day in winter he was driving by the 
frozen shore of the White Sea, when he saw 
a ragged young lad fishing through a big hole 
in the ice. 

“Who is that hideous rag-bag catching fish 
through the ice?” he asked his chancellor who 


134 



sat on the front seat beside the driver. 

“O most wealthy and wonderful, it is the 
humblest of your citizens, Hanka the Fool,” 
replied the chancellor. 

“Take him by the collar,” ordered the 
Merciless Tsar, “and plunge him through his 
hole in the ice. I want to see his face when 
he comes up again!” 

So the chancellor commanded one coach¬ 
man to descend and dip poor Hanka into the 
freezing water, and of course the coachman 
had to obey or else have his head cut off. 
He grabbed The Fool by his collar and gave 
him a kick from behind, and Hanka fell 
screaming through his hole in the thick white 


135 



ice. The Tsar declared he had never seen 
anything so funny in all his life. 

“Do it again,” he cried, “do it again!” 
Poor Hanka the Fool was nearly frozen to 
death before the Tsar grew tired of him and 
let him go. He had a cold for weeks after, 
and if his mother had not given him hot tea 
and put him to bed with warm flat-irons at 
his feet as soon as he got home, he probably 
would have died. 



A few days later, while the Tsar was sit¬ 
ting in state upon his throne, feeling bored 
and cross and merciless, a stranger came to 
the city from the distant North, driving over 


136 






the frozen sea. He drove all alone in a sleigh 
with three white horses whose trappings were 
hung with icicles that tinkled like bells. His 
hair was long and flaxen, his blue eyes were 
clear as stars, and he wore a flowing white 
cape that looked like feathery, newly fallen 
snow. Of course everyone thought he would 
stop at the inn near the city gate, but he 
drove up the highway through all the town, 
and did not stop till he came to the palace of 
the Tsar. Then he reined in his horses, stood 
up in his sleigh and called with all his might. 

“Hi, Brother Tsar! Give me a lodging for 
the night, for I am weary of wayfaring. Give 
me a bed and a place at thy board, and fod¬ 
der for my horses, that we may rest!” 

The Tsar thought the stranger must be a 
madman, and sent out a slave to drive him 
away. But the wayfarer would not go. 

137 


“Brother Tsar!” he cried again, “Brother 
Tsar!” Then the Tsar jumped up from his 
throne in a rage, snatched a whip from one of 
his coachmen, and stepped out, in all his 
pride and glory, upon the terraces of turquoise 
mosaic. 

“Away!” he cried, “Away, or I will have 
thee bound and tortured!” 

“What, thou wilt not grant me even a 
night’s lodging under thy roof?” exclaimed 
the wayfarer. 

The Tsar cracked his whip. 

“Begone, thou mad intruder!” he shouted. 

“Yes, I will be gone,” returned the stranger, 
seizing the reins and jerking up his horses in 
great anger. “But henceforth there shall be 
war between thee and me. I will sack thy 








city and send thee begging, O merciless Tsar, 
for the affront thou hast offered me today. 
Know that I am the Strength of the Storm and 
Ruler of the Great Ice, King Winter!” 

The Tsar turned pale when he heard these 
words, but before he could make any excuses, 
the chariot with the three white horses and 
the tinkling icicles had turned about and was 
flying far, far away to Northward, over the 
boundless stretches of the Great Ice. So the 
Merciless Tsar went back into the throne- 
chamber and said to his chancellor, “Bah! 
How could King Winter sack my city, any¬ 
way? I’d like to see him try!” 

That very day it began to snow so hard 
that the children all through the city could 
not go to school. The boys went out and 




shovelled the silver pavements, but soon they 
had thrown so much snow into the middles 
of the streets that even the strongest sleigh 
could not get through any more, and the 
streets looked like thick, white walls between 
the side walks. And still it snowed and 
snowed and snowed. Soon the piles in the 
street became so high that the boys and even 
the men could not throw any more snow on 
top. Then the sidewalks were all snowed up, 
and the steps of the houses were covered, and 
the snow rose in walls against the first-story 
windows. 

Round the palace the piles were so great 
that the turquoise terraces could no longer be 
shovelled, and they snowed up just like the 
streets. The Tsar grew very angry when he 
saw the white walls rising outside his windows, 
making his rooms all dark and chilly. He sent 


140 


out his entire household to shovel and sweep; 
from the cook to the Lord High Chancellor, 
even the ladies in waiting had to go out with 
brooms. There were not enough snow shovels, 
but he made them use coal shovels and dust¬ 
pans, and the youngest kitchen-boy kept the 
window-sills cleared with the pancake turner. 
But still the snow came down and down, till 
there was no place to shovel it to, because it 
was everywhere. It rose to the second stories 
and blocked all the windows of all the houses. 
People in the town lived in the garrets, and 
even the Tsar, fuming with anger, had to move 
into one of the high towers of his palace. All 
the stables and barns were snowed up and 
people had to let the horses live with them in their 
sitting rooms and put the sleighs into the halls 





and spare-rooms. But the snow fell faster and 
faster till it was level with the roofs and threat¬ 
ened to block even the dormer windows. Then 
they knew that there was only one thing they 
could do; they had to leave the city. 

The Tsar ordered everybody to pack up as 
many things as the sleighs could carry, food and 
clothes and cook-pots and the children’s school¬ 
books, money and jewels, tool-chests and linen- 
chests, cups and saucers, bed-clothes and 
brushes and tooth-powder, and flee from the 
city before the snow should bury them all alive. 
He himself headed the procession with ten 
golden sleighs, each drawn by twelve black 
horses. Thus the whole population of the rich 
and royal city climbed out of dormer win¬ 
dows or broken roofs, and drove through the 
snowstorm toward the South, where the great 
dark forests were. When they looked back for 


142 


the last time, the snow had already covered the 
roofs, till only the golden tops of the 
church-steeples showed above it, and a few 
hours later even these disappeared. King Win¬ 
ter had sacked the city of the Merciless Tsar. 

Three days and nights the Tsar and his 
people had to drive, before they came to a place 
where the snow was light enough so they could 
shovel it and really reach the solid brown earth 
underneath. That was in the great forests, 
where owls hooted, wolves howled, and foxes 
barked all night, and big bears sat up on their 
haunches to watch the newcomers with doubt 
and curiosity. The people took saws and axes, 
hammers and nails out of their tool-chest and 
began to cut down big trees and build rude log- 
cabins to live in. 

“Build mine first,” said the Tsar, sitting in 
his sleigh and jiggling his feet to keep warm. 


So they all labored together and made him 
a wooden palace, with stables for his horses and 
quarters for the coachmen and a big wooden 
terrace for his Majesty to walk on after dinner. 
Then they made their own houses close around, 
and a wall of brushwood, thorns and vines 
about the whole settlement, to keep the wolves 
and bears away. 

Thus they lived for months and months in 
great misery. Soon all their food was eaten up, 
and the men had to go hunting, but they could 
not kill enough game to feed such a large popu¬ 
lation. Then the Tsar became quite terrified, 
for he knew that he must starve very soon if 
they found no help. Several times he sent 
messengers to the distant shore of the White 
Sea, to find out whether the snow had not 
melted and his city reappeared; but everyone 
who came back said no, the city was not to be 


144 



At last ... he saw a tiny square of window light 

behind some thick holly bushes 

%/ 










found; you could not even tell where it had 
been. 

“Oh, will no one tell me how I may recover 
my city?” cried the Tsar in despair. 

“Perhaps the Wise Woman in the forest 
could tell you,” replied the Lord Chancellor. 
“She is King Winter’s mother—in fact they say 
she is the mother of all the kings in the world. 
And she is said to know everything. But it is 
hard to find her. You must come to her hut 
all alone, some cold night under the Northern 
Lights, and knock three times upon her door, 
calling, ‘Mother Mir! Mother Mir!’ Then per¬ 
haps she will answer you—and perhaps she 
*. ** 

won t. 

So the Tsar waited for a cold, bright night, 
when the Northern Lights played across the 
starlit sky, and on that night he went out all 
alone into the deep forest. He wrapped him- 


145 




self in his richest purple cape, set his crown 
upon his head and put white ermine boots on 
his feet. As he walked unattended over the 
frosted snow, under the great pine branches, 
he looked so royal that the wolves in the forest 
stood at a respectful distance and did not dare 
to eat him, though he was all alone. He walked 
for an hour or more and wondered whether he 
had gone in the wrong direction to find the Wise 
Woman’s hut. At last, just when he was 
ready to give up the search, he saw a tiny 
square of window-light behind some thick 
holly-bushes, and following that, he came upon 
the hut. 

It was low and covered with heavy moss, 
patched with snow and edged with black pine 
cones. The little window pane was a sheet of 
ice. (In summer it melted away, but then the 
Wise Woman would not need a window pane, 


146 


for the air coming in would not be cold.) The 
door was made of rough bark and had a big, 
twisted root tied to it for a knocker. The Tsar 
picked up the root and let it fall three times: 
Thump! Thump! Thump! 

“Mother Mir!” he called, and his voice 
sounded very big in the still, black forest, 
“Mother Mir! Mother Mir!” 

At first he thought she was not going to 
open, but by and by the door swung back, all 
by itself, and he stooped and went into the 
littl e room. There was a fire on the hearth; 
near it on a pile of leaves sat the brown old 
woman, counting lily-seeds. She had hands 
like gnarled wood, and long grey hair that 
swept the floor. But her eyes were keen and 
clear and her lips were red. 

“A million and th ree, a million and four,” 
she counted, dropping the seeds into a bag. 


147 


“A million and five, and six, and seven, and 
eight; a million and nine red lily seeds.” Then 
she tied up one bag, pushed it into a corner, 
and opened another with seeds of a different 
kind. 

“Good evening to you, Mother Mir,” said 
the Tsar. 

“Good evening, Tsar; have thy people sent 
thee to me?” 

“Sent me!” he cried, drawing himself up so 
he bumped his crown on the ceiling. “Sent 
me, indeed! I am the most wealthy and won¬ 
derful Tsar and no one could keep me or send 


** 





“Except King Winter,” the Wise Woman 
corrected him. 

The Tsar flushed with anger and pride. 

“That’s why I came to thee, Mother Mir. 
What shall I do to recover my buried city?” 

“What thou must do, is very simple, O 
merciless Tsar. But if thou art not willing to 
do it thou shalt never see thy city again. Thou 
must repent of thy mercilessness, and become 
as humble as Hanka the Fool. Thou must give 
all thy wealth away; and let thy last gift be to 
a poor wayfarer, to atone for thy sin, that thou 
didst refuse a wayfarer shelter and food in thy 
palace.” 

The Tsar was puzzled. He had never 
thought how wicked he was and did not know 
what it would be like to repent. 

“How shall I repent, Mother Mir?” 

“Go back to thy people, look into their 


149 


houses, see how hungry and unhappy they are 
because of thy mercilessness; perhaps it will 
make thee repent.” 

“But how shall I recover my city by being 
humble, O most Wise Woman?” 

“I have told thee all thou needst to know; 
now go thy way and let me count my seeds, for 
Spring will come and I must plant these flowers 
throughout all the forests of the world and they 
all are numbered, though people think they 
grow wild by themselves.” Then she began 
counting seeds in the new bag: “One, two, 
three, four, five—” 

The Tsar went home through the wintry 
forest, under the Northern Lights, still wonder¬ 
ing what it would feel like to repent. When he 
returned to his people he did as the Wise 
Woman had told him—stopped at one house 
after another, and looked in at the windows. 


150 




In the first house he saw a mother who was 
so ill that she had to lie in bed while the father 
cooked the dinner and the dog was trying to 
mind the babies; and the dinner for them all 
was one woody turnip. The babies were cry¬ 
ing, the mother was crying, the dog was crying, 
and the father said over his cooking-pot: 

“It is all the fault of the Merciless Tsar. If 
he had not been so proud and haughty and 
turned that strange wayfarer from his door, we 
would not be starving now!” 

The Tsar, watching through the window, felt 
a shiver run down his spine. “I might send 
them a little of my wealth,” he thought, “just to 


151 



stop their crying.” Then he turned away and 

looked in at the next hut. 

He re he saw an old man on his knees pray¬ 
ing to St. Peter. 

“0 dear St. Peter,” he said, “please take me 
to heaven soon, for I have such awful back¬ 
aches that I don’t want to live any more. I got 
them from being whipped when I begged the 
Merciless Tsar for a penny!” 

The Tsar felt his conscience twinge him a 
little. “I will send him a doctor to rub his 
back,” he said. And he turned away again and 
went to the third house. 

Here sat a young girl, all alone, spinning 













thin cotton thread with frozen fingers. All the 
time as she spun, the tears were running down 
her face. The Tsar took off his crown, turned 
his cloak inside out so one could not see the 
rich purple velvet, but only the lining, left his 
boots outside, and went into the hut. 

“I am a stranger,” he said. “Let me sit 
down a moment and get warm. And tell me 
why thou art crying.” 

“Because my lover is dead,” replied the girl, 
setting a chair for the stranger. “He had his 
head cut off for contradicting the Tsar. And 
now even if we should return to our city, even 
if I should be rich and care-free, I can never, 

never be happy again.” And she cried harder 
than ever. 

“Now what could I do to help her?” thought 
the Tsar. But suddenly it occurred to him that 
there was nothing in the world he could do that 


153 


would bring her lover back or even make her 
any happier again. Then he felt so sorry that 
the tears ran down his cheeks, too, and he went 
outside and threw himself down upon the snow 
for unhappiness. 

“Oh, I have been so wicked!” he cried. “I 
have been so merciless that I have made all my 
people miserable. And I can’t help the poor 
girl, and it’s all my fault—I have been so 
awfully, awfully wicked!” 

All night long, he lay in the snow, even 
after all the window-lights had gone out, and 
no one knew he was there. When morning 
came and people opened their doors to see 
what the weather was like, they saw their most 
wealthy and wonderful Tsar, without boots or 
crown and with his coat turned inside out, lying 
face down, on the ground. They called the 
Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chamberlain 


154 



and many other lords from the wooden palace, 
and ran to pick him up, for they thought he 
must be dead or at least fainted. But when 
they touched him he sat up all by himself and 
looked at their surprised faces. 

“Your wonderful highness, what has hap¬ 
pened?” they cried. 



“I have repented!” replied the Tsar. 
Henceforth he became so humble and mild 
that people called him the Merciful Tsar. He 

155 




took a basket of food and carried it to the poor 
people who had only one woody turnip to eat, 
and he went to the lame old man with a bottle 
of liniment and rubbed his back till it got 
well, and every day he sent some gift, a jewel 
or a gold-piece or a silver thimble, or something 
of the sort, to comfort the girl whose lover had 
been beheaded for contradicting him. He gave 
his wooden palace to his lords and ladies, and 
moved into a tiny brown hut, moss-covered 
and patched and without window-panes, way at 
the end of the village. No beggar ever went 


156 


empty-handed from his door; and if a little boy 
cut his finger or bumped his knee, the other 
boys would say: 

“Go to the Tsar, Aliushka, he will put a rag 
with ointment on it and make it well!’’ 

Soon he had given away so much of his 
wealth that he was quite the poorest man in the 
village. One day just as he sat down to eat his 
last piece of dry bread, a very weary old woman 
came to his door and said: 

“Alms, alms, for the love of St. Peter, 0 
most Merciful Tsar!” 

“I have nothing but this piece of bread, but 
you may have it,” he replied, and gave her his 
frugal dinner. The old woman sank down upon 
the block of wood that was his only chair. 

“Ah, but you don’t know how weary I am!” 
she sighed, nibbling the bread with her toothless 
gums. “I have no hut to live in, no place to 

157 


lay my head, no roof to shelter me from the 
icy winter.” 

“Thou art sleepy,” he said. “Lie down on 
the bed.” 

As soon as she had lain down and fallen 
asleep, he took a piece of charcoal from the 
fire place and wrote on the table, where she 
would surely see it when she woke up: 

“Take my hut, and my bed, and everything 
I own. I have moved out. There is another 
piece of bread in the kitchen drawer, but it is 
mouldy.” Then he left the hut, shut the door 
carefully so the snow should not blow in and 
went to the village gate, where there was a 
public bench; there he sat down. 

Presently he heard a great commotion in the 
village; a lot of people were coming toward the 
gate where he sat. In their midst walked 
Hanka, the Fool, with big boots on his feet, an 


158 


axe in his belt, and a fishing-rod over his shoul¬ 
der. Everybody was shouting to him: 

“Good luck on thy way! Good luck, 
Hanka! Good luck to thee, brave wayfarer, 
may all the Saints help thee against the wolves 
in the forest!” 

“Where art thou going, Hanka?” asked the 
Tsar. 

“Far away to the White Sea,” replied the 
Fool. “We are all starving in the village, so I 
am going to chop a hole through the ice and 
catch fish.” 

“Alas!” replied the Tsar, suddenly remem¬ 
bering what the Wise Mother Mir had told him. 
“Thou art a wayfarer now, Hanka, and I 
should give thee my last gift to atone for my old 
cruelty to the wayfarer who came to my palace- 
gate. But I have nothing, nothing left to give, 
not even a safety-pin!” 


159 


“Give me thy blessing, O most Merciful 
Tsar,” said Hanka the Fool. “Surely with a 
Tsar’s blessing I could go safely in my long and 
arduous way. It would keep off the wolves and 



bears and robbers that attack poor wayfarers in 
the forest.” 

“Yes, I will give thee my blessing,” agreed 
the Tsar. 

So Hanka knelt down in the snow, and the 
Tsar gave him a blessing for the journey. 

Hanka travelled for many days through deep 
and drifted snow. Over his head the black 
crows flew from tree to tree, and all night when 


160 


he crouched by his brushwood fire he heard 
the wolves howling and the foxes barking in the 
great forest. But no beast or bird or prowling 
robber ever tried to hurt him; that was because 
he traveled with the Tsar’s blessing on his head. 

At last he came to a great field of ice and 
snow that he supposed was the White Sea. He 
took his axe and began to chop the frozen floor, 
because he was a fool and did not know that 
there was really solid land under his feet. 
Suddenly his axe struck on something that 
cracked like wood. 

“What’s this?” cried Hanka, jumping back 
and dropping his axe. “It can’t be ice, for it 
isn’t clear; it isn’t wood, for it’s too white; it 
isn’t stone, for it’s too brittle; I know!” and he 
jumped up and down with pleasure because 
he knew. “It’s ivory!” 

It really was ivory. Hanka was standing 


161 


on the buried city, and his axe had broken the 
ivory roof of the Tsar’s palace! 

He went on chopping, and digging the snow 
and splinters away with his hands. At last 
there was such a big hole that he could jump 
into it. There was a deep, dark chamber un¬ 
derneath, but Hanka was not afraid, so he let 
himself down through the hole. 

Here he stood, in the empty, snowed-up 
palace of the Tsar! Of course he had never 
been in it before, and though it was dark and 
damp, and had not been cleaned for a year, he 
thought it was almost too splendid to be real. 
He took a match from his pocket, struck it on 
the wall and looked round by its feeble flare. 

“Golden chairs,” he whispered, so much im¬ 
pressed that he could not speak aloud, “and vel¬ 
vet rugs and such bright, brocaded curtains! I 
have heard people talk about these things, but 


162 


I have never believed they were real. Here is 
a door, and a stairway; that must lead down¬ 
stairs. Oh, I will go all through the palace and 
look and look!” He went softly down the 
stairs, striking matches to light his way, and 
putting the burnt ends into his pocket so as not 
to litter the floors. 

The whole palace was j ust as the Tsar and his 
people had left it in their flight. From some 
of the rooms they had carried off the bed-clothes 
and things, but in others the beds were unmade 
and odd stockings and handkerchiefs and pow¬ 
der-puffs lay around, that no one had thought 
to take along. Hanka picked them all up and 
put them neatly on a chair. Here he found a 
candle, too, so he could light his way without 
striking matches all the time. 

He went to the kitchen and found it very 
untidy, for the cook had left in a hurry. He 

163 , 


i 



had left the cake in the oven, where it had 
burned to ashes and some milk on the window 
sill, where it had turned to cheese and then to 
something worse, so Hanka held his nose with 
one hand while he washed the pitcher with the 
other. But in a beautiful box he discovered 
some crackers that were still quite good, and 
on a shelf above it was a pot of jam, so he sat 
down on the table-corner and ate to his heart’s 
content, for he was nearly starved. 

When he could eat no more, he remembered 
how often he had heard people talk about the 
marvels of the great throne-chamber, where the 

\ 164 ' 



musicans used to play and the Lord Chancellor 
to read in a loud voice all the news from the 
Tsar’s empire, and where people were brought 
trembling before the throne to be sentenced to 
death. 

“I must see the chamber,” thought Hanka. 
So he prowled through all the pantries and 
banquet halls and reception rooms till he came 
to a door of ebony and gold, richly inlaid with 
mother-of-pearl. 

“This must be it,” he murmured. “If I 
only dared to look in! Of course, it will be 
quite empty—the musicians have left it and the 
Lord Chancellor is not there and the throne is 
deserted—but still it must be very splendid.” 

Carefully he shot back the silver bolt and 
the great door swung open. A breath of very 
cold air struck his face, as though he had 
stepped into an ice-cave. And for a moment 


165 




he really thought he had. In the four corners 
of the room stood four great men of ice, with 
folded hands, heads bowed under the ceiling, 
and eyes that shone like cold December stars. 
They were the four Spirits of the North: Silence, 
and Frost, and Loneliness, and Northern Light, 
who guarded the city since the Tsar and his 
people had fled. And on the Throne in the 
middle of the room sat King Winter with a 
crown of ice upon his head and a foot-stool of 
snow under his feet. 

Hanka’s knees shook with terror and he 




dropped his candle on the mosaic floor. The 
candle went out, yet the room was full of light, 
a still, blue light, like the reflections in a block 
of ice. The four great men did not move. But 
King Winter raised his hand and beckoned to 
the lad. 

“Come here,” he said quite kindly. Hanka 
had fallen to his knees, and crept upon them 
across the floor, holding up his hands for mercy. 

“Who art thou?” demanded the King. 

“Have pity, O most wonderful King! I am 
only Hanka the Fool.” 

“Have ye come back from the great forests, 
thou and thy friends?” 

“Sir,” replied Hanka, kissing his feet, “It is 
only I who have come. I did not mean to chop 
through the roof of the palace. I meant to chop 
a hole in the ice of the White Sea to catch some 
fish, for the Tsar and his people are starving.” 


167 


“Thou hast come alone?” asked King Winter 
in surprise, “How is it that wolves and bears 
and all the wild beasts have spared thee, and 
robbers have not beaten thee to death? 

“Because, O Most Wonderful Majesty, I 
traveled with the Tsar’s blessing on my head. 

King Winter sat up, and even the four 
Spirits looked startled. 

“But since when,” asked the King, “doth the 
proud Merciless Tsar stoop to give his blessing 
to such a beggar-lad as thee?” 

“Oh,” cried Hanka, “he is not proud, indeed 
he isn’t! He is as humble as I am, even I, 
Hanka the Fool. We call him the Merciful Tsar, 
for he has turned from all his wickedness, and 
given his wealth away. I was a wayfarer, and 
he had no other gift for me, so he gave me his 
blessing, Most Wonderful King!” 

At these words King Winter arose, the four 


168 


spirits lifted their heads, there was a murmer of 
many voices and then fairy music everywhere. 

“Rise up, Hanka,”said the Ruler of the North. 
“My reign in the City is over, for the Merciless 
Tsar has repented and become as humble as 
thou. Go back to the great forests where thy 
Tsar and his people are, and tell them to return 
hither, for King Winter and his forces have left 
the city, and it belongs to the Tsar once more! 
In token of this, in case thou shouldst forget 
what to say, take that bag of snow-stars behind 
the Throne, and carry it to the Tsar.” 

While he spoke, a whole army of spirits, snow- 
fairies and wind-fairies and genie, crowned with 
frost-flowers, gathered from all parts of the palace. 
Some came from the bedrooms, where they had 
been asleep in the bureau-drawers, some from 
the kitchen where they had been hiding under 
cups and mixing-bowls, some peeped down over 


169 






the pictures on the parlor wall, or between the 
curtains, or even out of the empty hall-stove. 
They all joined hands in a ring and danced around 
Hanka, who sat bewildered on the floor with his 
axe and fishing-rod, wondering where all these 
creatures had been while he had explored the 
palace. 

“Joy, joy,” sang the spirits, “we are going 
home again, home to the North Pole, to our 
friends, the seals and polar bears, the long wait¬ 
ing-time is over, for the Merciless Tsar has re¬ 
pented—joy, joy, joy!” 

Then there was a tinkle of icicles outside the 
door, as King Winter’s sleigh with the three white 
horses came jingling up. The palace doors flew 
open and Hanka saw that the snow had already 
melted down almost to the turquoise terraces. 


170 




The king leaped into his chariot, waved his 
hand to the humble fool who had followed him 
to the door, and away went the royal horses, 
over the frozen White Sea to the distant North 
Pole, with all the fairy train holding on and run¬ 
ning behind as swiftly as the wind. 

Hanka turned back and looked at the empty 
throne chamber. The four great Spirits had 
vanished, though he had not seen them running 
away with the fairies. But where they had stood, 
the floor was cracked a little, and four yellow 
crocus-flowers had sprung up through the stone. 

Hanka felt very lonesome and frightened in 
the big, splendid palace. He picked up his axe 
and rod and the bag of snow-stars King Winter 
had ordered him to take, and ran as fast as he 
could through the open door, over the terraces, 


171 



through the town and gates to the open country 
outside. Everywhere the snow had gone away 
so quickly that the second stories of all the houses 
were quite free and the first stories just appear¬ 
ing. Beyond the gates, he came upon great 
streams of water that were running down to the 
White Sea, where the ice was melting and wip¬ 
ing out the track of King Winter’s sleigh. Hanka 
turned toward the South, to the great forests 
where the Tsar’s people had built their wooden 
village. He sang aloud as he walked, because 
the warm sun was shining on his back, and his 
stomach was full of crackers and jam, so he felt 
very happy despite the heavy bag of snow-stars 
on his shoulder. If he had not been a fool he 
would certainly have wondered why they were 
so heavy; but he was a fool so he just carried 
them and did not wonder at anything. Above 
him in the treetops the birds were singing as 


happily as he, the air smelled sweet and warm, 
and in some places Mother Mir’s flowers were 
peeping through the thin, wet snow. 

“Why, I believe it’s going to be Spring!” said 
Hanka. 

In the village, the Tsar was still sitting on the 
bench beside the gate. The villagers came to 
offer him food, but he refused it, saying “You 
have not enough for yourselves. I will not eat 
your food. Give it to your children, good 
people!” 

“But you will starve!” they cried. “Oh no,” 
replied the Tsar. “Some good Saint will take 
care of me.” 

And in the night, when the village was quiet 
and dark, the crows in the forest flew to him 
and brought him some frozen berries, the squirrels 
brought nuts to appease his hunger, and the 
fairies from the great Forest brought partridge- 

1173 



It was a beautiful sunny morning, when the 
villagers who stood about the gate talking to the 
Tsar saw Hanka returning, with his axe and rod 
and a bag over his shoulder. “Look, look,” 
they cried, “he is bringing a whole bagful of 
fish!” 

“But where do you suppose he got the bag?” 
said the Tsar. “He didn’t have it when he 
left.” 

They were not kept guessing very long. 
Hanka came running and shouting: 

“Greetings, O Merciful Tsar, greetings from 
King Winter! He gave me a message to thee, 
but I have forgotten it, but here is a bag of snow- 
stars for thee, and thy city is all thawed out, 
King Winter has gone back to the North Pole. 
And I went through thy palace and found lots of 


174 


crackers and jam, which I ate. I didn’t mean 
to steal, but there was nobody to ask for them 
so I had to take them.” 

The Tsar smiled and nodded. 

“Thou art welcome to my crackers and jam, 
dear Hanka,” he said, as he opened the bag of 
snow-stars, took it by the lower corners, and 
turned it upside down. 

Out of the bag rolled thousands and thou¬ 
sands of sparkling, flashing diamonds! The 
people stood open-mouthed, and Hanka sat 
down with surprise when he saw what he had 
been carrying. 

“That means we may return, for King Winter’s 
war is over,” said the Tsar. So all the people 
went back to their city on the shores of the White 
Sea, where the streets were paved with silver, 
the walls were shining marble, and the church 
steeples were topped with gold. The Tsar sat 

175 


on his throne again, but he ruled his people 
now with mercy and justice, so everyone liked 
to be brought before him to see his mild fatherly 
face. 

Hanka was allowed to live in the palace all 
his life, and had a silver fishing-rod, a silken line 
and a diamond sinker, and was permitted to cast 
for gold-fish in the royal pond. King Winter 
came for a visit once every year with a little 
snow just to remind people of his past reign; 
but he always found the people ready to joke 
and laugh at the bad weather he brought, for 
they were all happy and contented who lived in 
the city of the Merciful Tsar. 



o 


o 


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BIRDLING • NIKKO * MINKA 










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PETER,-ZARASHNE the-TSAR, 



































